


Our Brand New Years

by moonswirl (Awesome_Nerds)



Series: Lucaya Project [2]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 365
Words: 399,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27701957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesome_Nerds/pseuds/moonswirl
Summary: 2nd of a series of daily updated year-round stories, following an alternate timeline in which Maya Hart moves to Texas instead of Lucas Friar moving to New York. - Lucaya Project 2018
Relationships: Lucas Friar/Maya Hart
Series: Lucaya Project [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2001985
Kudos: 2





	1. Their Return to the Day to Day

**Author's Note:**

> I will be bringing this story and its sequels along, little by little. There are nearly four full years' worth, plus two sideline stories, so it will take some time for me to catch up to where I am presently.
> 
> The story is broken down in week-long blocks, as reflected in the chapter title roots.

Summer had seen its last day come to an end, and as Maya woke up that morning, the first of her sophomore year in high school, it did sort of feel like the last weeks had passed much faster and much differently than she had expected they would. Farkle and Smackle had returned to New York, and not long after, Asher and Joey had been called out of Austin by an unplanned visit to their grandparents in Arizona, with Dylan tagging along. Zay and Nadine had been celebrating their anniversary as though it was a relay race, which more often than not left them headed off on one outing or another while the others – Maya, and Lucas, and Riley, and Rebecca, too, once Joey had gone to Arizona – did their own thing.

She could still stop and recall some of those moments and chuckle to herself, thinking about her fair cowboy of a boyfriend, caught in the whims of the three of them girls and still always, always behaving every bit as ‘he of the invisible hat tips’ would be expected to behave, no matter how silly they could get. The height of this had been a few days back now, when Rebecca had decided to change her hair, color and cut and all, and Maya and Riley had taken on the task, with Lucas as their assistant. The end result had been pretty fantastic, all things considered… those things being the giggles and the messes of the pair of hair ‘stylists’ and their assistant.

Awake now, she could see Riley had already gotten up and dressed, and was now in the process of… climbing out of the window?

“What are you doing?” Maya asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes, yawning as she tried to wrangle her hair into some semblance of order. Riley stopped, mid climb, and looked at her with a smile that said, ‘good morning!’ more than ‘busted.’

“Home, you’re picking me up, you and Lucas,” she reasoned.

“But you’re already here,” Maya frowned, confused.

“You have your routine, I have mine,” Riley pointed out, before carrying on out of the window. Maya sat there, debating the chance she might still have been sleeping, right up until she felt a little nudge at her hand and looked down to find one of her dogs looking back at her.

“How did you get up here?” she smiled at the little Queen, giving her a scratch and a kiss. The other two, Ghost and Tuck, sat there on the ground next to her bed, looking up. “Morning, boys,” her smile turned into a laugh, leaning to scoop them up, one by one. She could have stayed there, playing with the three of them all morning, but then there was that whole ‘going to school’ thing, wasn’t there?

In little to no time she was up, and dressed, and halfway through breakfast. When the doorbell rang, she smiled to herself before moving to answer. _Now_ this was a school day. Riley had been right, they did have their routines, and hers involved taking a walk with one Lucas Friar. That routine had seen some change now, just barely. They didn’t walk anymore; he was the driver, and she was his passenger. With her last piece of toast between her teeth, her apple in one hand, and her bag in the other, she said goodbye to her parents and her dogs and went on her way to school.

“My mother doesn’t want us eating in the car, she says she doesn’t want bugs getting in,” he informed her as they went to sit in the front.

“I’ll be careful,” Maya promised. “Young minds need nourishment, you know?” He looked at her, she beamed, and then he laughed and she gave him a bite of her toast. “Okay, let’s go.”

“What about…” he nodded back to the house. She looked for a moment before understanding what he wanted to know.

“Oh, no, Riley went back to her place, we better get going.” He had his own confused moment at this, and she repeated their friend’s pronouncement. “What detour are we taking today?” she asked, calling on his promise that their going by car instead of by foot would not cut down on their conversations in the morning.

“They’re almost done with the new library,” he suggested, and she gave a nod. She did like seeing it coming together, bit by bit.

So, off they went, Lucas putting on what was becoming a distinctive ‘driving’ face while she kept on eating. He was still finding his way behind the wheel, even after having been practicing more and more, though she knew it had much more to do with his wanting to make sure he made no mistake, didn’t cause any accident, while he was driving someone else along with him. It didn’t matter how many times and in how many ways she, and their friends, and his family, and _her_ family, all said he was very good at it. Lucas was careful and it suited him.

Having their morning routine back, as minimally altered as it had been with the introduction of the car, did make her feel good, for reasons he would have been all too aware of. After months of preparation, of studying, of tests, of doubts and fears and debate, she would be starting, that very morning, in her first advanced class. To say she had been feeling that pressure build up in the last few days would have been an understatement. But then she was finding that it didn’t feel as bad as she might have thought it would. She’d been through plenty in the past three years, she’d surmounted her fair share of obstacles. This didn’t have to be such a big one. And if nothing else, well she would have Nadine at her side, a friendly face always.

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Their Return to Friends

Some days, even in summer, when they should have had better things to do than to hang out around there, they would end up passing by their school and stopping a while to sit on ‘their’ bench. There was never even enough space for all of them to sit, but it never mattered either. This was their space, just as the steps of their middle school had been before. And still somehow, when they came up from the parking lot that morning and saw it there, it felt like they were returning from so long ago.

They were the first ones there, and both Maya and Riley had taken off running, to ensure that they would not miss their shot at sitting there, which left Lucas to hurry along after them. They dropped on to the bench with a laugh before scanning their surroundings, hoping to see a familiar face. They were particularly anxious to see the trio who’d been off to Arizona, as they hadn’t made it back to Austin until the night before. Before they came, it was Nadine and Zay who came up, with Nadine tugging at her boyfriend’s arm to get him hurrying along, too.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she smirked, sitting next to Maya.

“I know, right?” Riley replied, tipping her head to the blonde.

“You saw me this morning. You were literally at my house, you slept there,” Maya shook her head at her best friend of New York, who insisted on maintaining this pretense, like they hadn’t seen each other before she and Lucas had gone to pick her up at her house.

“You ready?” Nadine asked. Maya shrugged, nodded. “Hey, I’m glad you’ll be in there, you know?”

“Yeah, I know, you can’t get rid of me,” she laughed, pulling her friend close, just as they heard the familiar call of Dylan and Asher as they came up their way, Joey trailing behind them. “Or them either, hey!” she got up, as the others did, welcoming their returning friends.

Once Rebecca arrived, her new hair making big waves – especially with Joey – the schedules were pulled out, everyone leaning around to see who had what, which ones they’d share and which ones they wouldn’t. As with the year before, it did sort of depend, but overall, they were never on their own, and sometimes they were all together. That one was easy, like their little miracle: history class with Mr. Matthews, and all nine of them would be sat around, three by three. In there, it wasn’t too far off from how it was, with them sat out here, even if they did have to behave more than they did here, everyone talking at once, piled on like there was no such thing as personal space.

“Your grandparents were okay, right?” Riley asked the Garcia twins. They’d been supposed to be back a few days ago, and there’d been no real explanation as to why they’d stuck it out all this time, which had left the rest of them to wonder and get their own ideas.

“Yeah, they’re good, we just stayed out a bit longer to go to a concert two nights ago,” Asher revealed. “Had to convince my parents, but then Gran really wanted to get to keep us, so she talked them into it.” Maya knew Asher’s grandparents, his mother’s parents, had lived with them when he and Joey had been babies and little kids, before moving to Arizona, and the twins were still very close to them, even if they didn’t get to see them as much as they would want to.

“I didn’t want to leave, their grandfather made these cookies, they were as good as GiGi’s, maybe better,” Dylan declared, sending a wave of barely contained giggles through most of them there, seeing the look of baffled betrayal on Zay’s face.

“Lies,” he gasped, while Nadine patted him on the arm. Dylan reached into his bag and pulled out a tin box he presented to the group, opening the lid for them to see. The scent that escaped from within was like an invitation, and still none of them dared reach inside, first looking to Zay, to see what he would do. He was looking at those cookies, too, oh, they were calling too him to much. Lucas caught his eye, gave him a nod that seemed to say, ‘just do it.’ So he reached out a tentative hand, grabbed one of the cookies and brought it up to his nose to breathe it in a bit, then after a moment, he took a bite, and another, and then it was gone and he reached for a second, and in the next moment there was a flurry of hands digging into the tin, leaving it empty in a flash. “Animals, all of you,” Zay shook his head, before turning to Dylan. “ _As_ good. _As_ good,” he insisted. No one would say better than his GiGi’s cookies.

“As good,” Dylan laughed.

The cookies were consumed through a last little stretch of conversation, and when they were all done, down to the last crumb, it was time for them to gather up their things and go into the school, get settled in before heading to their first class of the day, wherever it may have ended up taking them, some here, some there. Lucas reached for Maya’s hand as they went up toward the door, and she smiled, looking back at him. She thought about what he’d told her, a few weeks back, when they had all celebrated Christmas in August on one of the hottest days of the summer.

This year none of them were new, none of them were just moved to Austin or just starting at a new school. All of them were here together, carrying on as they’d done the year before, still growing, still evolving, without the weight of uncertainty. Sure, she had her advanced classes now, but after all this time, it didn’t feel like one of those shifts like they’d had before. They had different classes, all of them, that was how it had been for all of them already. First day… Off they went…

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Their Return to Class

Lunch time rolled in, it felt to her, very suddenly but also not a moment too soon. She had started out the day with a double shot of what she had a feeling would turn into a headache in no time, AP chemistry, followed by AP algebra. At the very least, they would be over and done with for the rest of the day, wouldn’t they… Once she’d made it through that, she’d needed a moment to get on track with French in third period; she’d never been more thankful for the time she had spent in France over the summer.

They came out of Mr. Matthews’ World History class in mass, the nine of them heading for the cafeteria looking like they all really needed this break even more than they needed the food itself. It felt a lot like the first day of the previous year, their first in high school, all of them sort of whiplashed with new things. But then they’d be sitting with their friends, and their trays, and they would all start talking, sharing the events of the morning.

Once they’d settled in with their lockers, they’d split off, Lucas heading toward Chemistry along with Riley, Zay, Dylan, and Joey, while Maya led off toward AP Chemistry with Nadine, Asher, and Rebecca. Dylan had made a joke as they’d gone their separate ways that it really wasn’t the best idea to have them messing with fire and chemicals when they were all barely awake. Riley had gotten a look of concern at once, over her potential clumsiness. Maya had done her best to reassure her that she wouldn’t burn down the place to tiny bits, though she’d still thrown a look to Lucas as they’d gone, putting him in charge of the Riley Reassurance Brigade. With a smile and a tip of the head, he’d promised.

They hadn’t done anything that would put her or the school in trouble that morning, though Maya was sure her good Huckleberry would be ready to jump into action if ever he was needed. About halfway through _her_ class, she was feeling like she could do with some of that magic herself… She hadn’t been concerned, going in, and to some extent she still wasn’t, but… Well, no matter how much she felt some seed of confidence firmly planted within, it did leave her with a feeling not unlike piling on a week’s worth of work in a day. Then they’d gotten out of there, and as Asher and Rebecca had gone off and rejoined the others for Algebra, she and Nadine had been bound for its advanced counterpart.

Walking out of there, Maya’s head had felt heavy, like she’d lose her footing for the weight of it. She’d left Nadine, who was off to Spanish class, and she’d gone to find her ‘partners in French endeavors,’ also known as Lucas, Riley, Dylan, and Rebecca.

“You alright?” Lucas had asked her as he’d seen her coming. She hadn’t replied until she’d hugged him good for a few seconds.

“Can we just say we’re in Paris for the next little while and pretend none of… that… happened?” she asked him, frowning to herself.

“That bad?” he asked, rubbing at her back.

“No, it’s fine, just a lot, you know?” she explained as they went into the classroom. “Can I get a pastry or something?”

“There should be pie at lunch,” he offered.

“That’ll do, yeah.”

She was eating that pie now, cherry, as they went on talking, sharing in the class they had just left, the one they all had together, World History, with Mr. Matthews. This, above all else, had power to make her feel at home, even though she was anywhere but. She could never feel any other way when Cory Matthews was holding class. These other teachers, they didn’t know her the way he did. He looked at her, he knew the girl she’d been, and the girl she’d become, and he would only smile; he knew she’d make it.

“You know, when we first met, Riley and me, when I found out her dad was a teacher, I didn’t know how to be around him. He was ‘Mr. Matthews.’ Then I got to know him, and I found out his secret… He’s a big old nerd,” she grinned, and the others laughed.

“He probably wished you didn’t know that,” Asher pointed out.

“Oh, yeah, he’s regretted that one for years,” Maya laughed along.

Leaving the cafeteria, she was in no hurry to part ways, knowing she wouldn’t see Lucas again until the day was over. As they walked on, she asked how he was doing with the day so far, knowing she could have some tendency of taking up the conversation. He told her his day was going just fine, the only part he wasn’t particularly happy with being the fact that they only had two classes together this year and they were both over by lunch time.

“We’ll just have more to talk about when it’s over,” she pointed out, and he agreed that there could be plenty to be happy about there. “Where are we going today when gym’s over?”

“Dylan’s, I think,” he revealed.

“Great, it’s been a while since we crushed you guys,” she hummed, looking back at him.

“Too bad you’ll have to wait longer then,” he countered, and she chuckled. How was it that they had been dating almost a year now, and standing here, doing their not unusual ‘I am the champion’ routine, felt all sort of… shiny and new again? She kind of liked it…

“Right, sure, you tell yourself that, it’ll make you feel better, might even soothe that burn you’ll get later,” she insisted before stretching on to her toes to kiss him. “See you later, Huckleberry. Have fun in class, or something.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. Their Return to Peace

After the state she’d been in when he’d left her after lunch, Lucas hadn’t been too sure how he would find his girlfriend when they reunited that afternoon. His own afternoon had been pretty good. After English, which had been good yet uneventful, he’d had his first go at debate, joined by Nadine, Dylan, and Joey. He’d chosen it as one of his electives on sort of a whim, but he was kind of glad he had picked it now, it sounded like it would be interesting. And after that, he’d had his first class, for the second year running, of woodworking. It had been good last year, sort of peaceful, and it was the same here. And then, just now, he’d had phys ed, which he would spend this year playing baseball, with Asher and Dylan. It would be good, especially while they waited for basketball tryouts to roll by again.

He changed out of his gym clothes, letting the others know he and Maya would meet them at the Orlando house, giving them some moments to share and talk, just the two of them. He expected to be waiting for her a while, as she had swimming for _her_ phys ed class, but when he came up to the door of the girls’ locker room, he found her crouched there, hair still wet and pulled into a ponytail, rummaging through her backpack, rearranging her books.

“Hey, how was it?” he asked, and she looked up, smiling.

“Fish like,” she reported. He only had to see her face, her posture, to know the morning’s stress had gone away from her. She was ready to go, so they took off, getting into the car to head to Dylan’s and meet their friends. “How was it for you?” she asked, and he told her, about English, and debate, and woodworking, and baseball.

“Still can’t believe Joey went in for debate. I mean… Joey…” she rounded her shoulders to recall their shy friend.

“He said he wanted to challenge himself, to open up. Probably why he picked drama, too.”

“That’ll be something,” she couldn’t help but smile. Their friendship, hers and Joey’s, had always been sort of particular, for how they’d had that failed sort of date, way back when… They’d come out on the other side of it for the better, hadn’t they? She’d realized her feelings for Lucas, he had met Rebecca… sort of… and the two of them had become friends, more than being connected through their bonds to Asher.

She told him about her afternoon, which had started in AP English, with Nadine. Of her three advanced classes, she had to say, it was the one where she was most at ease, though this in itself was still something of a surprise, when she remembered days where assigned readings were such a struggle. That had all started to change in the days following her arrival in Texas, hadn’t it? One of the first shifts that had brought her to see school differently, and she wasn’t about to forget it, or the teacher who had gotten her started on that path.

After that, she’d gone off to drawing, the lift she’d received with her previous class only brought higher. How could she be anything but happy here? This had only continued in her other elective, which had been the easiest choice for her: photography. It brought her closer to her father, as it had done since they had met, since he’d given her a camera… She wanted to learn more, and here she had that chance. She already knew she’d made the right choice after one day. And after that, of course, it had been off to the pool for swimming. Having Riley there with her, all she could think about were the days when they would pretend to be synchronized swimmers, trying to flip over, sticking their legs out of the water, and only ending up nearly swallowing half the pool once or twice.

So that was one day done. There’d be plenty, plenty more, sure, but they’d get through those, too, she knew they would. And now, sitting here with him as they drove off to Dylan’s, the breeze acting to help her hair into drying, he could feel the calm coming off of her, the happiness. They sat for a while without saying a word, and they were sharing in that feeling.

Pulling up on to Dylan’s street, they spotted Zay, Nadine, and Riley walking along.

“Should we pick them up?” Lucas asked.

“Wouldn’t be very friendly to leave them behind, would it?” she replied, the mischievous tone rearing up in her voice, suggesting they _could_ mess around with them a bit. Lucas smirked, slowing as they approached the trio, giving a tap to the horn to surprise them, and they startled on cue. Maya laughed as he pulled over and the others climbed into the back.

The rest of their group had already made it, Dylan and Asher, and Joey and Rebecca. They all had a small load of homework already, some more than others, and they would get to that before long, but this _was_ the first day back to school, first day where they were all reunited, and the only thing they wanted to do in that moment was what they did on so many afternoons, gathering at the basketball hoop. Teams were formed, three against three and the others on the sidelines.

“For the year!” Maya hollered, holding the ball up in the air, to resounding cheers from the rest.

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. Their Return to Weeks

The first week of the new school year was already close to done, and in those five days alone it seemed they had fallen back into the old rhythm of things. A new year, new teachers, new classes and subjects, books and the likes, but maybe after a while school was just school. Lucas didn’t know that all of them would be of that mind as he was. For sure, Maya was still adjusting to being in her advanced classes. She never said anything, never made any suggestion that it could have been working through her thoughts. But then in the time he had known her, Lucas could say with confidence he’d gotten pretty good at deciphering Maya’s facial expressions, the big overpowering ones there for all to see and the tiny little micro ones that could be missed in the half blink of an eye.

By now it was for certain going to be the case that each day would be about making it through those first two periods. After that, she was in the clear. It wasn’t even really that she was struggling, and _that_ was as much a surprise as it was a relief, but it _was_ more challenging than anything else she had to deal with. If she could read him half as well as he could read her, he knew at least she would know how proud of her he was, how much he believed in her.

Having only two classes together was something new for them, and in no way their favorite, making it feel almost as though they were going to different schools. Leave it to Maya of course to run with the idea, treating most partings and reunions like a great drama, when she was wasn’t just plainly bursting with joy to see him. One way or the other, it got _him_ smirking right back.

His week up to this point, where he sat in his Friday woodworking class, had been sort of run of the mill as far as classes, leaving the memories, whatever they may have been, to come from his friends and classmates. He would be joined by Zay, Dylan, and Joey, every morning in chemistry, in the effort to convince Riley she wouldn’t cause some disaster out of any residual sleepiness. Algebra would be algebra, which was to say that it was in no way his favorite, but he could deal.

Third period would see the return of Maya by his side, first in French, where they would see every day who was going to become their teacher’s latest prey, called on time and again to answer questions, read passages… Of the five of their nine in that class, so far two of them had gotten their turn, Rebecca on Tuesday, and Dylan just that morning. Rebecca had done more than fine. She would have been expected to, being fairly diligent in her study of the language as one of her mothers had grown up in France. Rebecca herself had not really picked up on the language until they’d started learning it in school. _This_ morning, when it had been Dylan’s turn, had been something else. What could they say, really? He did his best, always, even though his best was… well, not very good. The optimistic look on his face seemed to be baffling their teacher, which had kept Maya just on the edge of breaking into giggles all class long.

Then in history, well, what was there to say, really? Even if it wasn’t for the fact that they were all in that class together, they were all of them starting to gain on that feeling Maya must have had a long time ago, seeing their friend’s father stood at the front of the class. He _had_ been their teacher for a couple years already, but if this was the year where nothing was new or changed, then maybe it was also the year for growing aware of some things more than they’d done before, too.

Their English teacher was a bit on the dull side, according to the majority of the class. Lucas couldn’t say the woman was his favorite, but then they’d had her for all of five days, hadn’t they? There could be hope yet. Debate was getting to be interesting, as he’d imagined it could be. The opinions did vary among the others there with him. Nadine was as driven and unwavering as they would all expect her to be. Dylan was Dylan, all of them thinking he wouldn’t necessarily thrive, right up until he’d come out of nowhere and surprise them. And Joey… Oh, Joey was still doing his best to come out of his shell, and all of them wanted him to succeed as much as he did. After that, woodworking was what it had always been, though he was starting to feel like, sitting there, he couldn’t stop thinking about his grandfather, and he liked that. After getting out of there, switching to baseball was not unlike coming out of a peaceful nap and immediately running a marathon.

When he wasn’t in class, like most of the remaining members of the previous year’s boys’ basketball team, he would check in on freshman Scott Shelby, see how he was adjusting to high school. His older brother Nathan had been their captain, he’d just graduated a few months back, and Scott was all but guaranteed to take the spot he had vacated. He was the latest in the great Shelby legacy, which included his and Nathan’s sister Julianne. She was now in her junior year and likely to take up the captain’s mantle on the girls’ team now that _their_ captain had graduated, too, along with two others. It might not have seemed fair to anyone else going after that spot, but then they only needed to see the boy play to know he would have earned that jersey. They weren’t there yet, sure, but they were waiting on the start of that season, all of them, waiting on becoming a team again.

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. Their Return to Family

The first afternoon games of the school year so far had each found a way to be thrown off, or interrupted. Monday had been cut off before long, after Nadine’s mother had called her home to look after her sisters. Tuesday had seen Maya accidentally get clipped by Dylan’s arm, unharmed if just a bit thrown off balance. She’d had worse in her time on the basketball team, but then it was just all of them friends, and after the hit, after they’d all huddled in around her to make sure she was alright, they’d sort of sat there a while, talking, and never got back to playing. Wednesday, they hadn’t played at all, or gathered to hang out. And yesterday, after the most sustained and intense game they’d had, a sort of freak rainstorm had sent them scrambling for cover inside the Garcia house. So that day, Friday afternoon, they’d just cut their losses and decided to watch a movie at the Hart house.

It had been months now since her mother and Shawn had been married, since the three of them had been living there together as a family, and even then there would be moments every now and then where she would just sort of stop and look around, and she would remember that it hadn’t always been this way, would remember that they had gotten to this point in their lives, finally and gladly, and that they had been able to let it grow into normalcy for them. Mother, father, daughter… three pups… in a little house in Austin, Texas. And it wasn’t even a dream, not anymore; it was all real.

They were still trying to settle on what movie to watch, a discussion which was soon slowed to a crawl when the dogs came into the living room and gained the focus of the group. Maya took this as her cue to go off in search of snacks. Eventually they did get to watch their pick, sat around the living room, the dogs moving from one person to another before they retreated into Maya’s room.

Little by little the group had departed, though Lucas, Riley, and Dylan had all ended up staying for dinner. After _they_ had gone home, it was just Maya and her family. She’d been waiting since they’d all come home earlier, her and her friends, to get the chance to talk to Shawn about her photography class and the project they had been assigned for the year. She still needed to figure out just what she would do, and his being a photographer, she couldn’t think of anyone better to brainstorm with.

She had the fortunate unfortunate issue that she had too many ideas. Every so often the inspiration would strike so deeply on a project, regardless of the medium, that she wouldn’t know which way to go. That night, as she went on and on, Shawn sat there listening to her as she spoke, letting her go on but also looking like the volume of ideas coming out of her was starting to feel like a tornado, spinning them out of control.

“Okay…” he nodded once she’d stopped. “So, what I’m seeing here is not much chance you’re going to make a choice today.” She frowned. “Well that’s not a bad thing, or it doesn’t have to be. You have all these ideas, you’d be worse off if you had _no_ idea what you wanted to do.” She shrugged, forced to see he had a point. “When do you have to say what you’re going to do?” he asked, and she told him they had until Christmas break. “Alright, well, hey, you just… let it come to you, yeah?”

“So, do I get to go on random trips out of town like you did? You know, ‘on assignment,’” she air-quoted with a smirk.

“You know I wasn’t really on assignment, right?” he pointed out with a chuckle.

“You weren’t?” she played shock. “But for real, inspiration _could_ strike and not be in Austin… or Texas at all…”

“So long as it strikes somewhere in the country, I’m sure we can figure something out,” he held out his hand, and she shook it gladly.

She would spend the rest of the evening helping her mother sort out some papers for the theater. In a couple of days, it would dawn on her that maybe her mother was using this as a way to keep herself from saying something, revealing something she’d heard about in a call she’d received while Maya and Shawn were talking about her photography project. Maya hadn’t noticed a thing, maybe out of some satisfaction for having made it through her first week of class. She had loads of homework to do, though she had given herself the night off, the better to tackle it the next morning. Right now, sitting here with her mother, that was all she really wanted.

In just a matter of weeks it would be three years since the two of them had moved from New York to Texas, three years that had taken them as far from where their lives had been as they ever could. Even after all this time she still couldn’t help but note the passage of time since the move, maybe always would, and that was kind of okay. This may have been the year of stability starting for her at school, but it hadn’t come out of nowhere, had it? That year came as a result of those others which came before, and Maya did not intend to forget it.

TO BE CONTINUED


	7. Their Return to Surprises

Sunday morning, Maya woke up early, enough that, when she heard her parents move from their room, she had been sitting in her bay window with an open sketchbook in her lap and a pencil in her hand for near on two hours. She had no homework or studying left to do, no chores either and, when she’d remembered this, it had been as though her inner muse had stretched out her arms and grasped her mind in her hands. She wouldn’t be coaxed out of her spot until her mother would pop in to remind her they were headed to the Matthews’ house for breakfast.

She went off there with her sketchbook in hands, to show Riley the ‘posters’ she had drawn up for their fledgling band that morning. By the end of the summer they had sort of promised themselves, Maya, Riley, Nadine, and Smackle, that at some point their TXNY would become more than an idea. Right around now it was still the case that they were adjusting to new classes, some of them adjusting to increased difficulty and workload. So, it wouldn’t be the best idea to foray into something that was bound to take over a big chunk of their time.

After breakfast, they’d gone back to her house, Maya and the two Matthews siblings, to get the dogs and head to the park, while their parents hung out. They went and sat in their spot, the two girls – and Queen, who was not much for running around – watching as Auggie chased around with Tuck and Ghost. It was hard, when it was just them, the transplants out of New York together, not to end up talking about memories from when they lived out there, or to fall back on to their ongoing tie to the city, which was of course their friends and regular summer visitors, Farkle and Smackle.

As far as they’d heard, the pair of them were doing well in their new year of school, too. Maya had chatted with them the day before, at first under the pretense of needing help with her chemistry homework, though in time they had gone off track and just talked about their week. It seemed that, even with three years’ worth of high school still ahead of them, they were already thinking about the end of it, about the end and about what would come after. They had some kind of competition going to see who would do best by graduation which, according to Farkle, had been born out of his father’s telling him about how he and Riley’s mother had competed on that front back when _they_ had been in high school. It would be anyone’s guess who would actually come out on top, with those two involved, although both Maya and Riley seemed to agree that Smackle’s competitive edge might be sharper than Farkle’s.

They were still at the park when Maya received a message from Julianne Shelby, from the girls’ basketball team, asking if she was busy. When she replied that she wasn’t, that she was at the park with Riley and Auggie and the dogs, Julianne asked if they wanted to come over. So, after calling home to let their parents know, they started on their way to the Shelby house.

“Hey, there’s Anna with two n’s,” Riley pointed up the street as they walked.

“You know Ana, the other Ana, graduated, so there’s only one Anna now,” Maya told her before calling up to the girl, who was one year ahead of them in school. When they asked where she was headed, she revealed she was going to Julianne’s, too, so they continued all together now, thinking little of it.

It was only as they carried on walking, getting closer to the house and meeting more teammates, from the girls’ team as much as the boys’, that they came to assume the invite was to bring together all remaining members of the two teams, those who hadn’t gone off to college this year. By the time they had turned on to the street, there were fifteen of them players, plus Riley, Auggie, and the dogs, and the other five, Julianne included, were met at the Shelby house. They _had_ had chances of running into each other throughout the past week, in class, in the halls, the cafeteria, but being all of them in one place did feel special.

All of them had gone on under the assumption that this was just an informal gathering, keeping bonds going until the start of the new season, and for a while it was impossible for all of them not to get talking, inquiring if they had heard from their graduates… Maya had taken one look at their host though, and something seemed to be bothering her, much as she tried not to show it. While everyone else was still talking amongst themselves, Maya had gone to her teammate, asking her if something was wrong, and after a minute or so of dodging, Julianne had sighed and, with a clear whistle, she’d silenced the others, asking that they follow her down into the basement. Suddenly, her disturbed air was noticed by the rest of them, and so they went along. Auggie and the dogs stayed behind, left in the care of Scott Shelby.

“Look, you’re going to hear about this before long, but I wanted us to get a chance to talk before it was out there,” Julianne started as they all went and sat around the room.

“Before what was out there?” asked Ray Choi of the boys’ team, whose dog had given birth to the three now in Maya’s care.

“They’re cancelling basketball for the year,” Julianne announced, sending the room into an eruption of many voices that wouldn’t be quiet until their host once again silenced them. “I don’t even know what happened, not really, except my father heard Coach Chilton was fired, Coach Reyes, too, and when he reached out to them… They wouldn’t say it flat out, but… that’s what it comes down to. There won’t be a season, not this year… maybe not next year either, or… I don’t know…”

She sounded on the verge of tears, and looking around the room, a few others looked just as she did, others actually crying, others looking too confused or shocked to cry, and others frustrated, angry. Without a doubt, no one was left indifferent.

Lucas reached for Maya’s hand at his side without looking up, not really knowing what to do with himself. When she squeezed on to his fingers, he finally turned to her. He didn’t know what to say in that moment, but then she looked just as lost for words as he did, so he didn’t see that she could have done much more than him for a while. None of them were saying or doing much of anything as it was. They didn’t know the circumstances, and they likely wouldn’t find out much more, not today.

In time, some of them started to take off, choosing to head back home. Others wanted to try and do something, but in that moment, it wasn’t going to happen, so the desire never lasted very long, and then they would take off, too. Maya left, with the dogs, the Matthews siblings, Lucas, Zay, Asher, Dylan, and Nadine, making for Riley’s house, which was the nearest. They could have gladly made a chain up the ladder and through her window, if not for the dogs and Auggie.

“What happened to you guys?” Topanga asked when the lot of them came in with the looks they had on their faces. Before they could figure out what to say, Auggie spoke up, saying how they had gone to Julianne’s house, and how he’d played with her brother Scott, how they’d played video games and Scott was really good at those and showed him tricks. He also mentioned how all the players had been there.

“Then you heard,” Cory guessed, a somber look on his face.

“It’s true then,” Riley blinked. Maya only had to look at the four of them sitting there to know that they _all_ knew, and had probably been talking about it while the rest of them were gone.

They went up to Riley’s room, sitting in silence here as well, as they processed the revelation. They looked to each other, and the question on their faces was the same… Now what?

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. Their Adjustment to the News

The seven of them, sat around Riley’s room that Sunday afternoon, couldn’t have looked more disheartened if they’d tried. Maybe, once they processed it, the whole thing wouldn’t feel like that big of a deal, but for now it was just enormous, and overpowering, heavy in the air of the room. The basketball season, the thing they’d been looking forward to seeing return into their lives… It simply belonged there, it _had_ been there, these past two years. But now… But now…

Zay and Nadine were sitting on the ground, backs against Riley’s bed, her leaning her head to his arm and him holding on to her hand. Across from them, there were Asher and Dylan, the two best friends lying on the ground, staring up at the ceiling, turned opposite so each had the other’s feet next to their head. Riley sat on her bed, legs pulled in, elbows on her knees, head in her hands, looking like a very bummed out boulder. Maya and Lucas both sat on the windowsills of the room’s twin windows.

Someone was going to have to say something, eventually. Back at Julianne Shelby’s house, none of them had known what to say, nothing that didn’t come out of an immediate, confused reaction. Even now, they still didn’t really know all that much, did they? They knew, through Julianne, that both the girls’ _and_ the boys’ coaches had been fired, and that the teams would not be reformed, not this year. After that, well… That was even further out of their minimal knowledge. They didn’t even know the cause of all this, but anything that was so bad that they’d go to this length had to be really bad, right? Was there any room left to believe that this was all a big misunderstanding? Or a really mean prank?

“What if it doesn’t come back?” Nadine finally spoke, and of all the thoughts to be shared to break the silence, it only sank them even deeper. “What if it only comes back after we’ve graduated?” Silence regained as they considered this possibility. Lucas knew both Dylan and Zay were sort of counting on basketball to help them get into college, Dylan especially, and as he thought about Nadine’s question, his face seemed to lose some of its usual brightness. Asher, at his side, turned around so their heads were side by side now.

“We can’t start down that way,” Lucas shook his head, wanting to pick their moods back up, as impossible as it seemed.

“As much faith as I have in your super cowboy powers, Lucas, I think this one might be just a bit beyond even your reach,” Maya told him with a small smile. “This one’s just going to take time. We’re not there yet.” And that was true, they knew it.

“I didn’t even realize the coaches weren’t there last week, but now that I think about it… they weren’t there,” Zay frowned to himself.

“They’ll have to say something at school,” Asher jumped in. “Think they will? This week? They’ll have to, when tryouts would have been…” Lucas gave a shrug.

“It’ll come out sooner or later. It always does.”

Before long, under the initiative of the girl of the house, they went seeking to do something to pick themselves up, if for the span of this afternoon, this evening. Riley, their unofficial member but more importantly their eternal ray of sunshine, went to work, and despite a few false starts, she eventually had them all up and out of their funk, being silly for a little while instead of sad. Maya was loath to imagine what they would have done if her dear Honey still lived in New York; luckily, she didn’t have to.

They’d all gone home in the evening, maybe each of them quietly trying to keep this return to a good mood from being ruined by sinking back into the information they had received. They couldn’t say if they would succeed, or for how long, and they weren’t about to address it and risk making it happen. They were going to go home and just pretend all was well.

“If we had a team, I’d make you captain, you know?” Maya had whispered at Riley’s ear before following her parents out the door. Riley had beamed with pride, a tiny gleam in her eye that said she’d hold her to that someday.

She’d walked into Lucas’ waiting arms, hiding in his embrace for a moment, breathing deep as though it would help her return to this instant at the slightest need once she was on her own again. She hoped he would be able to hold on to some of her, too. He always tried so hard to look out for the rest of them, someone had to do the same for him.

“Call, write, whatever you need, if you need it, got it?” she spoke, looking up at him.

“Okay,” he agreed, smiling and leaning to kiss her.

“You’re getting better at doing that with them standing right there,” she told him, and he looked up, the tiniest startled look in his eyes, making her swallow back a chuckle. Her parents were doing some improving, too, not making too much of a deal out of any displays of affection between the two of them, in looks or words. In this case, they couldn’t even see them… It was as good a time as any to mess with him.

“Okay that’s not right,” he breathed out, then laughed, and then kissed her again. “See you tomorrow.”

“Kind of counting on it, and right back at you,” she vowed before heading off to join her mother and father. She took a breath. In her mind, he was still holding her, and all was well.

TO BE CONTINUED


	9. Their Adjustment to Truth

She’d been quiet on the ride home. She was sort of aware of her parents peeking back at her every so often, but she knew they wouldn’t force her to say anything, so she took advantage of this and stared blankly out the window until they arrived home.

Getting out of the car, without even thinking too much of it, she walked up the side of the house instead of making for the front door, landing in the back, where she found her basketball on the ground and picked it up. She must have stared at the hoop for… she didn’t know how many minutes, thinking she would throw it and being unable to.

Months ago, she’d been caught in a sort of indecision loop about all this, hadn’t she? She was going to be in the 10th grade, she was going to have advanced classes, and she’d been unsure she would be able to reasonably continue on with basketball, much as it pained her to think it, for how much it had come to mean to her. But in the end, she had told herself that she would wait, that she wouldn’t make her decision right away. She would see how it went, being back in school, having her new classes, to decide if it was possible for her to do both, and now… now the choice had been taken away from her. In the long run, maybe she would be glad, allowing herself to focus on school, but wouldn’t she always wonder now… What would she have decided if the choice had still been hers?

It wasn’t as though they would never play anymore, right? She and her friends would play around, at one’s house or another’s, at the park, most afternoons when school was out. And there was nothing to stop them and their former teammates from getting together and having sort of informal games.

But they’d been part of something, part of their school teams, and that had been something she’d grown to cherish, as she was sure most if not all of the others did, too. And now it was gone, and none of them really knew why yet so it felt like some great injustice they had been handed. There were some among them, Lizzy on the girls’ team, Étienne and Tommy on the boys’ team, who were in their senior year, and had just up and lost their last year of playing for this school. And if this went on another year, then that was eight more players penalized, and then a third year…

She remembered the look on Dylan’s face, thinking about what it might mean for his future, and she felt both sad for her friend and a bit guilty, because really this was just about playing to her, but not to him. Once upon a time, maybe she _would_ have been in the same boat, but things had changed for her, hadn’t they? Suddenly, the future became an almost tangible thing. Did she even know what she wanted to do with hers? Should she know already, should she be thinking about it?

Maya set the ball back down on the ground, finally walking into the house and moving toward her room, until her mother called her back into the kitchen. Shawn, it seemed, had been dispatched on an errand for ice cream, so for now the pair of them were left to themselves, sitting at the table.

“I wasn’t sure if I should tell you,” her mother started awkwardly. “Melinda called, she’d heard from Alice Shelby, and she thought all the parents should know, so when you guys all heard… There’s going to be an assembly, tomorrow morning at your school.” Maya sighed, feeling her stomach sink. There really was no space left for her to hope it wouldn’t be real, was there? “I’m so sorry, baby girl… I know how much you liked being on that team, but you know, even if I don’t get to wave a big, glittery sign to announce it, you’re still my number one,” she gave her daughter an encouraging smile, and Maya had to smile. “How are you doing?” she asked, reaching out to give her arm a squeeze, and Maya leaned to rest her head over her mother’s hand.

“I don’t know. I feel bad, for me, sort of, but for the others, too. It just doesn’t feel fair, you know?”

“That’s life for you… sometimes… All I can hope for you is that… this new change… Well, remember how you felt when we first came here, that turned out very different than what you thought it would be like, didn’t it? Maybe you’ll look back on this and it’ll be sort of like that, too, yeah?” Maya breathed in, saying nothing but wishing with all the power she had in her that it would be true.

Shawn returned, armed, it felt, with enough to cheer up both teams, with ice cream, and cupcakes, and chocolate, which he presented upon his daughter with a tip of the head as though to say ‘I’ve got you.’ She chuckled, grabbing the ice cream set before her, a spoon quickly handed over.

Lying in bed when the time came, she couldn’t help but think about what was happening, about the next day, this assembly they were supposed to have. Everyone would know, everyone, and what would they say? What was she, what were they, the players, supposed to do? They’d be going in there, knowing only one thing, finding out the rest at the same time as everyone else. The not knowing, that was really the worst of it right now, especially for her and her imagination. In that moment, it could really be anything, and ‘anything’ had the power of nightmares in its reach.

TO BE CONTINUED


	10. Their Adjustment to Reality

When he’d come through the door and his parents had seen his face, they’d known he’d found out what they themselves had already learned, and his mother had at once come to him and enclosed him in her arms for a beat before launching into a complaint she had kept quiet around him up to then. She went on and on about how unfair the situation was to Lucas and his classmates, those who were part of the teams, and that she didn’t intend to let it stand, and much as part of him wished she’d stop, he also knew that this was who his mother was, how she worked, and the thing that was for sure was that if anyone brought any kind of injury or injustice to her son, to her husband, to her family or friends as a whole, well… she wouldn’t just stand by and keep quiet. His mother’s strength and love could seem overbearing, but in moments like these he really wouldn’t have wanted her to be any other way.

In time he had retreated up to his room, knowing she’d reached the point where he didn’t in fact need to be there to listen, that she would spend whatever pent up frustration she’d been accumulating on her own, which was just as well. It was the first real moment he had to stop and settle into what had happened that day, the revelations they’d received, or what parts of them they had received, with more on its way.

He hadn’t known what to think, the entire time, since Julianne had let out the secret for all of them at her house. He’d stood and sat with his teammates, with his friends, and the whole time he was still really focused on them more than his own concerns, his own thoughts. Now it was just him, and there was no one there but him to consider what this could mean.

He loved playing basketball, he really did. He wouldn’t have kept doing it if he didn’t. And he loved being part of the team, part of that world, but now that the team part had been taken from them, well what would it mean? For them, for him… He still played with his friends, and he would continue to. Not having the team… Well it sucked, of course. He didn’t even have to think about that. But maybe it wouldn’t be as much of a disappointment to him as it was to some others.

Could he even say that to them? It was what it was, the way he felt, now that he had stopped to admit it to himself, but maybe they would take it the wrong way, like he didn’t sympathize with them, when of course he did, so very much. He only had to think of his closest friends, of Dylan and Zay and the tie to their future, and of Maya, of the way he’d seen the news settle into her over the day. This was a loss for her, one that would be felt, deep down, for a long while. All he could ever want to do would be to stand by her side, by their side.

That was only part of the question though, wasn’t it? This was a thing that had happened, a thing they didn’t know a whole lot about just yet. Was it his one week of debate that had him wondering on the facts, on what had brought on this decision? He tried to think of anything that could have been the cause of it, if it had to do with any one of them, any of the players. If that was the case, then they would have heard something, wouldn’t they? Unless they’d been told not to say? But if it was the players, it wouldn’t cause what _had_ happened, he didn’t think. The coaches had been fired, so it had to be them, yeah? What could they have done that was so bad that they wouldn’t just hire new coaches and carry on? He couldn’t speak much to the character of Coach Reyes, except that the girls seemed to like her, and Coach Chilton… He was a good guy, as far as he’d seen. He’d coached Dylan’s older brother, too, and some of Zay’s cousins. There’d never been anything but good words about the man. It just didn’t seem possible, none of it.

His father had come up to check on him, once his mother’s diatribe had run its course. Was he okay, he’d ask, and Lucas could only ever tell him what was real, which was that he was fine, maybe tired but nothing more. It had been an unexpectedly long and tiring day, and he didn’t expect the next one to be any easier. So, on that, his father had let him be, adding of course that if he needed to talk, needed anything at all, he would be there, and Lucas assured him that he knew this. He had also gone and seen his mother again, thanking her for her passion on the subject with nothing more than an earnest hug, and his mother had taken it gladly.

Maya had texted him… There would be an assembly in the morning. So, it was all going to be out tomorrow… He wasn’t surprised, but still it felt like, as tired as he’d been, he was more tired now. He’d gone to bed soon after, sinking into a dreamless sleep that carried him until morning. He was going to need all the strength he could get.

TO BE CONTINUED


	11. Their Adjustment to the Unknown

She didn’t have nightmares. She had weird dreams sometimes, that could border on bad ones, but they never seemed to her to qualify for the name of nightmare. And that night didn’t exactly break the norm for her. She _didn’t_ have a nightmare, but still she woke with a start in the middle of the night, at which point she couldn’t chase this feeling inside her, couldn’t get herself into a mind state that would lead her to sleep again. After a while of lying there without result, she’d gotten up and gone to sit by her window, looking up into the darkened sky.

Why was she even feeling like this? Why was she so shaken by something like the basketball season being cancelled? It didn’t seem right, and yet here she was.

She couldn’t even remember the dream all that well if at all. She did halfway remember what she’d been thinking before, maybe just as she’d been falling asleep. Maya never did shy away from acknowledging her former life, her former mindset. And despite the fact that she had grown and adjusted a great deal since coming to Texas, she would never pretend as though her roots had been swept away from under her, removed like so many weeds. She was who she was, was who she’d been and who she’d become. So where would the line drop for her when something like basketball was taken away from her? Would it cause some kind of chain reaction?

Sitting in her window now, she would tell herself just… no, it wouldn’t… would it? She was just overreacting, that was what that was. How could she not? Not knowing what was going on, how they’d gotten to this point, it was just asking for her to lose herself this way.

That was what she told herself now, that was what she believed, but that wasn’t going to clear her head for that night, just flip a switch and let her all of a sudden feel that she could sleep. She was just going to have to ride it out.

She could probably text any one of her friends, wake them up, and they would chat with her until she felt better. She could go into their room and wake her parents. It would make it seem worse than it was if she did that though, so she went and found the book she had to read for English and returned to the bay window to read by the light of her phone, scribbling notes as she went. If she just focused on the text, and she really needed to if she expected to understand any of it, then she wouldn’t be focused on everything that had gotten her so frazzled and sleepless.

It took a few minutes and a bit of rereading to get herself going, but she managed it in the end, and for about an hour she went on reading, to the tune of the sleeping dogs nearby. After that hour, she was feeling the yawns regain her, and so she let out a breath and determined herself to try and sleep again. Book and notes were set back on her desk and she climbed under her blankets, curling up and sinking against her pillow, all with the desire to best capture the spirit of sleep. She wouldn’t think about basketball, no, she would stay with the tale she’d been reading through a few moments before.

When she would wake, she would distinctly recall imagining her friends and herself in the guise of characters from the novel, either enacting the story itself or their own lives, in the fashion and language of the time, which was absolutely an improvement on her previous dreams. And then suddenly, having no way to stick out more if it tried, in this world centuries away in the past, a bright orange ball had come rebounding into the picture, its sound like a bell rung to call to attention. Her dream counterpart had tried to ignore it, but again and again the mystery object, so baffling to the others around her, would not be ignored. The dream Riley had picked it up and handed it to her, and without being able to stop herself she had taken it. The moment she’d held it, the illusion had broken, and they were back in the present, back as themselves and they stood in a flat world that looked like it had gym flooring uninterrupted on all sides and nothing else, nothing but them, like they were all that remained. And then the ground started to tip, leaving them all struggling to remain standing but inevitably falling, rolling and sliding off into the unknowable horizon, screaming and flailing.

It was some small fortune that the second time she woke up the sun was coming up. It was morning, and she would have to get up anyway. She would go shower, have breakfast, and then… stuff.

Tuck had been trotting after her since she’d gotten up, and it was hard not to smirk, seeing him staring back at her, wagging his tail, like the canine embodiment of his namesake. _Friar Tuck…_ He’d stood outside the bathroom door while she’d been in the shower, sat at her feet as she ate breakfast and fed him little bits every so often – and his siblings, too, of course – and then back into her room as she’d gotten ready.

“Dogs can be cowboys, too, who knew?” she’d laughed, giving the pup a good scratch, much to his enjoyment. “Your human backup is on his way, don’t worry.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	12. Their Adjustment to the Day

He woke up on Monday morning, finding his mother going around like she was doing her best to act normal when on the inside she was concerned for him and for how things would go for him at school that day. That was how she was, when he was involved. The day he’d first gone back to school after his suspension, she could have just marched right up into school ahead of him, daring anyone to say a damned thing about her boy. He could not have been prouder to have her for a mother, as… hyper intense as she could come off to some people.

“I could drive you this morning,” she told him as they sat to breakfast, the three of them. “We can go pick up your friends, too, like you do. You know I always enjoy seeing them, too, and I’m sure they must be just as…”

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine,” he told her, giving her a reassuring smile. “Really. I’ll tell you all about it tonight, okay?” She looked like she wanted to argue on it a bit more, but then after a beat she cleared her throat, gave a nod, and moved on. He would handle this one on his own.

He had slept very soundly, all things considered. No bad dreams, or strange ones, and whatever he did have he just couldn’t say he remembered it enough to know what he _had_ been dreaming about. It was any old night, and now it was any old morning, with him getting dressed and gathering his things before he could head out for school that day, wishing his mother and father a good one, until they saw each other again when his classes were over and he returned. His mother had ever so subtly suggested he and his friends might hang out at the house that afternoon, and he promised her he would let them know.

As he drove off to pick up Maya, knowing where they were headed in the end, all of a sudden it was hitting him more. Maybe it was because of his mother, how she’d wanted to come along, but he was feeling it now. This day was going to change things for them, for all of them who’d been on the teams last year. That might have been the one thing that troubled him in all this, where he would be involved. People would make up their minds about what had happened, whether it followed with what had actually happened or not, and it could follow them for the next three years. He’d been through something like this before, when he’d become the boy who’d been suspended in the seventh grade and left to repeat it and be older than all his classmates. He didn’t want that again.

Before he’d left, his father had come to him. He’d never asked if he wanted to talk, if he was having any issues, but Lucas knew this was his way of saying ‘if you need to talk, I’m here.’ Right about now, he kind of wished he’d taken him up on his silent offer, even if he couldn’t see himself finding the words to express what he wanted to know, wanted to show existed in his mind and his heart. Did he just have this persona about him that made it feel like he couldn’t cross certain lines, that he had to be who he was and pretend that there was nothing that could interfere with that?

He could hear his phone making noises, could feel it vibrate, but then he was driving, so he wasn’t about to see what it said. Still, every time he heard and felt it go, he knew another message was waiting for him, and the volume of it was high enough, frequent enough, that he had to believe several people were writing him. He kind of pictured it like they were all out there, the players from both teams – and Riley – releasing their inner concerns to him, to each other. Was it bad that it reassured him to some degree that he wasn’t the only one struggling that morning? He kind of thought it was, just a bit, though there really was nothing he could do about it.

Pulling up to the Hart house, it already kind of felt like the slightest weight had been lifted from him, like that small change could be enough to make it all a bit more bearable. But then there was little surprise to that, was there? Even before they had become boyfriend and girlfriend, before they’d even known and acknowledged that they liked each other, Maya was that to him. She had turned into his best friend (from New York), and whatever bad day he might have been having, it had been made less so from the moment she was anywhere near him.

He knew she’d be even worse off than he was that morning. It meant so much more to her than it did him, didn’t it? He’d left her the night before, passing what little he could on to her so that she might feel it would all be alright, and she hadn’t written him, as far as he knew, to indicate the result of that night, one way or the other, unless she’d done it while he’d been driving. But even so, all he had to do was get out of his car and start toward the house, and he could swear he knew, deep down, knew that she hadn’t had the best of nights, that he would find her weary looking and anxious. Nothing he did would make that go away, but he could promise he would do everything in his power to get her past it.

TO BE CONTINUED


	13. Their Adjustment to the Wait

He would hardly ever do this, especially ever since Shawn had moved in, but he went up to her window that morning instead of the door, knowing it would make her smile. She was sat there, he could see her as he neared, and her posture already told him she was drawing, and deeply focused as this, she would startle very easily, no matter what he did. When he gave the window a tap, though it was shut, he heard the little cry she tried to swallow back before turning around and finding him stood there, waving at her. She set down her sketchbook and pencil and pulled the window open.

“I should release the hounds on you, Lucas Friar,” she squinted at him.

“Those hounds?” he asked, nodding to the pups trotting about her room.

“They’re tougher than they look,” Maya assured him, before finally breaking into a smile and scooting aside so he could climb in and join her. “Would it give people the wrong impression if we didn’t show up at school today? Just… drove off into the sunset…”

“It’s morning.”

“Drive into the sunrise then,” she shrugged. “Come on, what do you think?”

“I think that won’t fix anything. It won’t make it better.”

“We don’t know that,” she told him. “We don’t.”

“Maya…” he tilted his head, needing to say little more than that to get his point across. She sighed, sitting back against the window. “I’m nervous, too,” he revealed, and she turned her head to look at him. “I wasn’t, yesterday, when I got home, or at night. Then I got up this morning and…” He finished his statement by leaning back to the window, just as she’d done.

“I had… a couple of weird dreams. I was up for an hour in the middle of the night, trying to clear my head. Read a bit...” He could hear the exhaustion in her voice now, and he reached out to put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned to him, and he had a feeling she might doze off if he let her.

“We should go.”

Though he was almost sure they knew he’d arrived already, Lucas climbed back out of the window and walked up to the front door, where he was greeted first by Maya’s mother and then her father, before she emerged with her bag over her shoulder, wished them a good day, and followed him back out to his car. They were earlier than usual, so he knew they could take one of the longer detours before inevitably landing at the Matthews’ to get Riley.

They were quiet for a while. He didn’t have to ask why that was. _He_ was nervous about the day, about what they would find out, what they would _all_ find out, and how everyone would react, and… well, she was probably even more nervous than he was, for her own reasons. It would have been very easy to try and change the subject, but at the same time he didn’t think that should be the solution, not always, and not here especially. If they kept running, they would always be running, when really they needed to just own up to the fact that they would have to stop running eventually, that it was going to come sooner or later, the thing they didn’t want to deal with.

He told her about how things had been with his mother; that felt like a good place to go to get them talking again. She smiled, no doubt picturing his mother’s outbursts. She understood his mother, too, appreciated her, and today was no exception.

And he told her about all those things that had caught him by surprise that morning, with worries he hadn’t reached the day before. The look on her face told him plainly that anyone who would ever dare make any comments on him would have her to deal with, and on that he could say the sentiment was mutual. He always only ever wanted to keep her safe, just as much as _she_ wanted to keep _him_ safe, and that was part of the place where their love had bloomed, wasn’t it?

The next little while, because the topic would not be ignored, they had spent trying to understand, with what little information they had, just what had happened to cause their seasons to be cancelled. He shared his conclusions, as minimal as they were, and she agreed on all counts. But beyond that, they really had nothing to go on, and they wouldn’t, not until they got to that dreaded assembly.

“I’m going to be useless in class until we’re called to that,” Maya sighed. “And Ms. Phillips just loves her Monday pop quizzes apparently…”

“Maybe they’ll call us before that,” he shrugged, attempting to sound hopeful. Whether it worked or not, he couldn’t say. They fell quiet again, for a few minutes. “You know what I’ll miss?”

“What?” she asked, though she almost sounded like she didn’t want to know, for fear that she’d miss it as soon as he said it.

“I’ll miss standing out there, hearing your call… our call.” She chuckled, couldn’t help it, and put out the call in question. “It’s very effective,” he added, making her smile now.

“One of our better ideas,” she agreed.

They were nearing the Matthews’ house now, and he wondered how Riley would be faring with this day, only ever unofficially part of the girls’ team as she was but entirely part of their unit as any one of the others would attest. Maya was fiercely protective of her, too. He had a feeling Maya would take one look at the other girl’s face and wonder about skipping out on the day again. Frankly, if he wasn’t so stubborn about sticking it out, he would have been glad to drive them both off on adventures rather than heading into school that day.

TO BE CONTINUED


	14. Their Adjustment to Secrecy

By the time they all sat on or around their bench, they must have looked like a bunch of people sat in wait of life changing news. Of course, in this case, all the others’ lives were going to change, too… they just didn’t know it yet.

This was a good thing, wasn’t it? Them knowing… what little they knew? If they didn’t, then they would have been completely blindsided today, when they’d be called to assembly, and none of them would have liked that to happen; no doubt to them, this was why Julianne Shelby had decided to tell them the day before. Still, here they were, weren’t they, at the mercy of unanswered questions.

Maya had arrived with her two best friends, finding they were the first to come. They _had_ all left sort of early, hadn’t they? If any of them had some sort of delusion over their being in possession of patience, they found their eyes pried wide open. Some things could rob them of any sort of ability to manage such a wait. It was to the point where, when Riley spotted Zay and Nadine coming up toward them, she had all but leapt to her feet to call them over, as though they would go anywhere else.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m sort of glad you guys look like you got as much sleep as we did,” Nadine breathed out, dropping at Maya’s side, where the blonde hooked her arm around hers. Lucas insisted _he_ did sleep, that his concerns only surfaced in the morning, but really it all came down to the same point, so he could only shrug and sit back.

Dylan and Asher had approached soon after, making it the earliest, to Maya’s recall, that the seven of them had ever all been sat outside school on all the mornings they had done in the past three years. None of them could do anything but sit here and wait to finally – eventually – get to the bottom of this.

“We should get extra credit for this,” Zay declared. “Has anyone wanted to be inside a school as much as we do now?”

“If they actually wanted it because of classes? Probably, yeah,” Asher pointed out, and Zay shrugged.

As the minutes advanced, with none of them knowing much of what to say, they could see others arriving, going about their day with the bliss of ignorance, something the seven on or around the bench envied them greatly. They must have looked so weird, but no one really looked at them in any odd way, and that might have made it worse.

“Do we have to be here for this though?” Dylan asked, sounding so defeated it almost didn’t seem like his own voice anymore, like he was a whole other person and their friend had disappeared. Riley had gotten up and moved around the bench to put her arms around his shoulders, giving him her best encouraging smile.

“I already suggested we didn’t, but Huckleberry here said we did,” Maya declared, getting a look from her boyfriend that asked why he was being dragged into this. “He’s probably right though,” she shrugged, sighed. “It would just make it worse.”

“Well then we need to do something, because I’m losing it,” Dylan frowned, though he did look on to Riley with gratitude as she went on holding him, like a human shaped security blanket.

“Normally I’d say we go throw a ball around, but that’ll only make it worse, right?” Zay balanced from heel to toes and back.

“Oh boy,” Nadine sighed.

So, for what felt like an eternity – though it couldn’t have been much more than twenty minutes – they’d sat there, silence only broken every so often and not for all that long. It almost didn’t seem possible that it was so early in the morning, really it had to be afternoon, right?

At long last, they could go inside, but even so they weren’t out of the woods. The assembly would happen, sure, but when?

“Want to come with me to chemistry?” Maya asked Lucas, grabbing hold of his arms, trying to lead him off with her and Nadine. When he reminded her that she did AP chemistry and he didn’t, she shrugged, insisting he’d be fine. “If you get in trouble, just flash that smile of yours, really, it’s very convincing.”

“I’ll see you in French… or at the assembly, if they call us there first.” She tried to throw on a pout, but he only kissed her and they went on their separate ways.

The call didn’t happen during chemistry. Maya swore she’d forgotten everything, either that or she’d up and lost the ability to understand… whatever language her teacher was going on in. Somehow, she did make it through class without incident, which might have been some kind of muscle memory save. It didn’t come in algebra either, but then neither did their teacher, so they had the period to do some work they’d been left in her absence. Like she’d done in the middle of the night, she’d devoted herself to the task, preferring that to the alternative of letting her mind wander.

By the time Maya landed in French class, as glad as she was to be reunited with Lucas, and with Riley, the wait had gone on so much longer than she’d expected it to, and it was getting unbearable. She sat there, chin in her hands, frown on her face, when Lucas dropped into his seat at the table they shared. He gave her elbow a cautious nudge, eliciting only a grunt out of her.

“I know,” he promised.

By the time they had made it through French, she’d just about had it. She’d marched out of there like a woman on a mission, didn’t stop until she reached the history class to find her curly-headed teacher.

“What gives, Matthews, are you guys just going to keep us waiting all…” she started, only to be stopped by his holding up his hand, then pointing to the speaker in the ceiling as the announcement chime rang. Just like that, students were directed to gather in the gym for an assembly. Mr. Matthews would direct his students on their way there, finding seats in the stands. The group of nine, as though gathered in class, sat three by three in neighboring rows, a perfect square of knowledge in a sea of confusion.

Then the principal had come up, standing before a microphone, and the secret was no more. The basketball season, the boys’ and the girls’ both, was cancelled before ever starting. This initial revelation, as it had done on a smaller scale in the Shelby home the day before, had been received… loudly. It was a minute or two before the principal regained control and was able to go on. Only the square of nine, and the other players wherever they may have landed in the stands, had been respectfully quiet all along, waiting on the part that would follow.

Finally, they learned the reason behind their loss. Their coaches, the man and woman they had relied on to lead them all through the previous year, it seemed, had not been quite the pillars, the mentors they had seen them as. Without going into too much detail, the principal had mentioned something about gambling, through the boys’ and girls’ seasons. Though the players weren’t suspected of any foul play in this, it had been decided that their only course of action was to disband the teams, for the foreseeable future.

So now it was out there. Even as the principal had turned no blame on to them, Maya swore she could see eyes turned to her, to her friends, to her teammates and fellow players dotted through the gym. Was it true? Or were they going to be interrogated? She’d reached for Lucas’ hand on one side, Riley’s on the other, and she’d looked back to her friends sitting in the rows above. All of them looked as struck as she did. This had to be a joke, right? Like a really, really terrible one?

The rest of the day was pretty much a blur. She went through the motions, they all did, but her mind was blank, and she couldn’t have said what she’d heard or done, in English, in drawing, or photography. Hitting the pool in the end, it did have a way of startling her awake, if only so she wouldn’t drown, but the whole while she still clung to the hope that she would wake up at any moment, far out of this nightmare. She didn’t have nightmares though, did she? And it didn’t feel like a dream either, because she felt the cold of the water all around her. Then it was real, it was staying real.

“Really shouldn’t have come today…” she’d told herself with a sigh, dunking underwater.

TO BE CONTINUED


	15. Their Days of Trying

Two weeks had gone by now since the day they’d all sat in the gym for the assembly and the news of the basketball season’s cancellation had been put out to the whole school. In some ways it could seem as though it had all gone by so fast and it wasn’t possible that it had been that long already, but at the other end of that spectrum, it was also getting to feel as though they had gone off deep into this new world, new reality of theirs, where this was how things were. Much as they tried, they still didn’t feel at ease in it, and really, how could they?

If it wasn’t hard enough to deal with finding out what they’d found out about their former coaches, several other students had been very vocal on sharing their thoughts and opinions with them. And while some simply insisted that this was awful and they regretted it for them, many more, it seemed, took it as a signal for open season on the former players. This was in no way their fault, and the initial fear that they might all be somehow implicated or interrogated had quickly been disproven. But even so, and maybe for having no one else physically there to blame, it now made it _their_ fault that there’d be no basketball this year at their school.

Maya could handle herself fine. The first one who’d tried to give her lip, she’d presented her retired hard stare, the one that made it clear that if they were looking to cause some reaction out of her they would have to wait a very, very long time, and that seemed to have discouraged everyone else from coming at her, but then there were plenty of others. In most cases, her teammates and the boys didn’t have any trouble either, handled themselves with that same sort of resolve, but she knew that there would be some who _would_ take it personally, and, maybe worse, some who would try to stand up for them and maybe get themselves in trouble in the process. Really, that category was personified near solely by her cowboy of a boyfriend.

A couple of seniors had ganged up on Lizzy Barrett, the one player of the previous year’s girls’ team who would be graduating this year and thus had lost her final playing year, their words sharp enough to pull tears from her. Maya, Lucas, Nadine, and Asher had run into her just seconds after, and when she’d told them what had happened, Maya had just felt Lucas tense up at her side, and she’d looked at him, at the expression on his face, and it said he was all too eager to track down those guys and give them a piece of his mind. She understood him, she did; there was only so much self control… either of them had. But all of them were sort of on edge these days because of this situation, and it wouldn’t take much for them to lose it and go too far, like for instance one of their friends and teammates being insulted the way Lizzy had been.

Maya had reached her hand out to take Lucas’, holding him to the spot without calling attention to what he might or might not have done. The whole mood had been defused, focused instead on comforting and supporting Lizzy. They’d had a couple other close calls like that since then, and maybe a time would come along when there would be no one in between.

The season wouldn’t have started for a few weeks more if it hadn’t been cancelled, so its being cancelled shouldn’t have changed all that much, not the way it would have done if all of a sudden they didn’t have practices anymore, or games, but it _did_ feel like they missed something, and there was nothing they could do to change it. They hadn’t even played the way they used to, just the seven of them, not really, not all that much. It would kind of feel like they weren’t allowed to, when of course they were. And still they couldn’t bring themselves to do it.

Sooner or later it all had to settle, to become less of a capital-T Thing, but if ever that time was going to come, it hadn’t come yet. They were still stuck in the never-ending aftermath, moping around over it all. There were still good things around them, but it felt as though the shine had gone away and all they had left was a dullness. They needed to get it back, they _wanted_ to get it back, but they hadn’t gotten to the point where it felt possible yet. So, until then all they could do was wait.

Their sophomore year was now three weeks done, and so far, it had been nothing like they had thought it would be, in good ways and bad ones, too. Obviously, the basketball scandal was owning the bad side of it, but where there were good things, they could only cling to them. And nothing could be better than to grow into the realization that they weren’t struggling where they feared they might. Maya, in particular, had actually managed to find her rhythm with her advanced classes. Maybe it was the shake up brought on by the loss of basketball bringing her to hone in on school. That was sort of what she’d done three years ago, wasn’t it? They’d come to Texas, and she’d been lost, and she’d started focusing more on her studies. One way or another, her first two classes of the day didn’t feel like so much of a challenge anymore, and that was a bright spot, growing brighter… Maybe they could get that shine back after all.

TO BE CONTINUED


	16. Their Days of Living

If he had any thoughts on the matter in general, being at home felt as though he didn’t need to express them, because his parents had it handled. To varied, sometimes extreme levels, sure, but it was all there, and all he had to do really was nod in agreement.

His mother, being his mother, had found the ‘sordid tale’ of the coaches’ dismissal absolutely despicable and shocking, so, so very shocking. She’d been walking around these past two weeks, every so often just stopping and letting out a little sound that, if put into words, would have come to ‘I can’t believe it, the nerve of these people!’ And then she would carry on with whatever she was doing, though you would know, if you didn’t already, that this entire conversation continued to play in the back of her mind, regardless of what she was actually doing.

Then there was his father, a much quieter man, fed on reason and logic. If something had been done, something that required action, and in some cases punishment, then that was what would be done. Lucas only had to look to how he’d been, way back when he had been suspended and eventually allowed back into school. Even so, even if he understood that the coaches had done something wrong, and that the actions taken by the school had been a response, and one not entirely inappropriate, Lucas could see his father felt bad for him, and that he was genuinely upset that it had to come to this. Seeing that, Lucas could feel appeased.

If that wasn’t enough, he had his grandfather putting his own word in. Pappy Joe assured his grandson that he had nothing but faith that he would bounce back, but at the same time he would tell any and all that this whole business was not right, and that this was all on the school for not having caught up on it all earlier on so that they didn’t have to penalize these boys and girls who had wanted nothing more than to play a sport, who had devoted themselves, time and effort, aches and sweat, and now were abandoned, yes, abandoned by their school, those words exactly. Lucas could only say that, for how well his mother and her father-in-law had gotten along over the years, he didn’t believe they had ever, ever gotten along as well as they did these days. They were of a single mind now, and bringing them together was enough to launch the argument to new heights that Lucas and his father more often than not would evade, with little to no notice from those two.

That was at home. Then he had school…

Classes were one thing. He could sit there and pretend like nothing had changed, like everything was exactly as it had always been. There had been no problems, no scandals. He was in the 10th grade, he had a girlfriend he loved so very deeply, had friends who were like an extension to his family, and a family that supported him, and soon he would be donning his basketball jersey for another year.

When classes were not in session though, reality would seep back into his life. He would have to remember everything else, the moment he looked at his friends, or when he’d encounter some of the more… unkind students in his school, taking this situation as an opportunity to come at him and his fellow players… former players… Much as it would roll off of him, when those words were turned on him, much as he’d grown to be able to ignore it and move on, if there was one thing he couldn’t take it was when his friends would receive the same treatment. All of a sudden, it felt like a volcano, rising toward eruption.

He didn’t know much about volcanoes, but if some thing existed that could turn back the tide, keep it from going critical, then Maya acted in the same way. He might say that he just didn’t want to disappoint her in some way, but it was more than that, it was just _her_ … She could calm him, just being there, just… holding his hand, looking at him. He looked at her, and it felt like no matter how bad things got, no matter how it made him feel, if she was there with him, then it wasn’t as bad, and he could believe it would get better.

He just wished it would happen sooner rather than later. They were stuck, all of them, stuck in some holding pattern, until a time might come where things felt better, felt as close to normal as they could get. How long were they going to be able to wait before they couldn’t wait anymore?

Monday morning now, another week starting, the fourth of this school year. He was on his way to pick up Maya, of course. Their ride in to school every morning had, every so often, been embodied with the power of shelter from the events of their lives. Once it had been the two of them, believing Maya was moving back to New York and quietly suffering over the impending separation, but now it was about basketball, and bad days. Sitting in that car, none of it would matter, because in that car it was just them, and they could only ever be happy that way.

TO BE CONTINUED


	17. Their Days of Changing

Another school week was starting this morning, and Maya couldn’t help but feel like she was bracing herself for it, every time. One thing she had going for her was her ability to thrive, to buckle down with peace on her face but all the while keeping her fears and uncertainties buried underneath. She’d done it for so long, until a couple years ago now, it was not surprising how easily she fell back into that rhythm.

Her mother had picked up on it before long. She’d seen her, like the ghost of what she’d used to be, in their old life, and Maya could just see her face grow sad. Even if she knew it wouldn’t stay like this, even if she knew it was simply a matter of her needing to adapt to all of it, it reminded her mother of that other life, and she hated to see her daughter disappear under that shield again. All the same, Maya never wanted her mother to have to worry about her in all this, but she couldn’t help the way she felt.

Her father may not have known her at the height of those days – he had been in many ways one of those who had helped her grow into the person she was now – but then they had those old similarities, and he didn’t need to have seen her back in the day to understand where her head was at. He never brought up the basketball situation with her; he understood that, when she did want to talk about it, she would bring it up herself. Instead, he would ask her how school was going, her photography class especially. Was her project advancing? Did she have anything new to show him?

She still hadn’t figured it out. She kept trying to find the right idea, but it never seemed to be what she was really after, and so she’d keep going in circles. She knew that in time she was bound to figure out the way she was meant to go with this, but until she did, all this uncertainty made her believe she would never actually make it there, that she’d turn in an empty folder to her teacher.

At least she didn’t feel the need to hide this. She told Shawn about all that, and he would nod, saying without words that he knew exactly how that felt, and he needed to do nothing else.

She’d been drawing more in the last two weeks than she’d done in a while. The last time she’d been so productive, it had been when she’d first gotten a sketchbook, the one her mother had bought for her on the drive from New York to Texas. She recognized the drive behind it though… so many emotions, so little headspace. It wasn’t the same as when she’d thought they were moving back to New York, or after the time Lucas and the others had gone on that trip without telling her. Those times, her emotions were just so drowned out by pain that she couldn’t have done much more than one drawing here or there. She’d filled out a whole book in the last fourteen days.

She’d filled that book with memories of the past year, of basketball games she’d either played in with the girls or attended for the boys, of practices, and down times, of all these boys and girls, some who had been friends and others who became friends over time. She knew that if any one of them looked at those drawings they would see one thing, while others would see another. That was sort of how it all felt to her, to them, didn’t it? No one could understand just what they’d lost unless they were one of them, one of those who had lost… all of that, all she’d been drawing in her book.

For how much time it had consumed to fill that book, she hadn’t really shown it to her friends. Riley had seen it, and Lucas, of course, they’d seen her and watched her draw along, every chance she got, really. Lucas would sit there next to her, shoulder to shoulder, and she would sort of imagine his energy, his memories, flowing from him into her hand, moving across the page. Those might have been her favorite moments in all those days.

He would be on his way to pick her up now, and remembering that, she picked up her things, so she could go and wait outside. Her mother was getting ready to head out, too, needed to pick up some things before heading to work, and when she saw her coming from her room, she came to embrace her.

“Mom, I’m not…” she sighed, presenting a weak sort of resistance to her mother’s hug. She may not have needed it in that moment, but she couldn’t pretend like it didn’t feel nice either. So, she took the hug, kissed her on the cheek, then wished her a good day before heading out the door when she heard the car stopping in front of the house. She’d been casually teased by her father more than once for being able to identify _his_ car from afar.

“I thought you said you’d filled it out,” Lucas pointed out when he spotted the sketchbook of these past two weeks peeking out of her bag.

“I did,” she nodded. “I just thought… maybe they’d like to see, and… maybe we could all get together and play sometime, even if just between us.” He smiled, nodding in agreement as they drove off. She did have a fresh sketchbook in there, too. She didn’t know if she would end up with another full one in another couple of weeks, but at this point she wasn’t taking any chances.

TO BE CONTINUED


	18. Their Days of Dealing

The filled sketchbook had left her hands in the morning and had not found its way back until the day was done. But she’d seen it, time and again. She’d seen it in each of her friends’ hands in turn, opened before them, the pages turned one by one, each new image greeted with smiles, with memories. And beyond her friends, it had traveled through the rest of the boys’ and girls’ teams’ hands, had nourished their joy and, to her great surprise, had appeared to lift their spirits like they hadn’t been since the day they’d all gathered in Julianne Shelby’s home.

Even just seeing all of that, seeing her friends be happy because of her… artistic fervor… it made _her_ happy, too, made her so happy that she felt like she could fill her new sketchbook in half the time she did the last one. The boost had come so suddenly and powerfully, she could never have predicted it. All she knew was that she hoped it would hold strong to each one of their hearts.

Coming out of the girls’ locker room after gym class, she’d found Ray Choi waiting for her, the sketchbook in hand. He smiled, holding it out to her.

“I think my favorite’s the one with Asher’s pass at the park match before the finals last year,” he added, and she laughed, recalling that moment. It had just been one of those impossible shots that suddenly became very possible through them, through skill and practice but maybe more than anything through their knowing each other, trusting each other.

“You two make quite the team,” Maya told him, and he could only agree. “You want to come and hang out? You should,” she insisted. “With everything, the dogs, that almost makes you family.”

“Well, I’m supposed to meet Stevie and Rene, we have a project for class,” he explained, showing he would have wanted to take her up on her offer if not for that.

“Hey, they can come, too,” she shrugged, a smirk twisting on. “We could have a rematch.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t say no to that, I mean… all those drawings, kind of made me wish I could be out there playing instead of… well, _not_. But we do need to work on that project, and we don’t always get the chance to meet up…”

“How about after you’ve done all that, you guys come and meet us?” she simply shrugged. “Pretty sure we’ve got some of that homework stuff of our own to do, too. Sort of mandatory, you know?”

Maybe it was that, already with those who would be in attendance once those three came around, they would have most of the old boys’ team gathered up, but at that point it really only seemed fair that they should also extend the invitation to the rest of the teams to come down to the Friar house, if they wanted to and were able to. That had been Lucas’ suggestion at least, once Maya had told him about her run in with Ray. And they _had_ put out the call, never particularly believing they would get full attendance, but that was what they got. Eleven boys, nine girls… well, ten, with Riley.

All at once, it seemed, someone had hit reset on them, and the mood had followed. They had set out and played, on and off for a few hours, in late afternoon and into the evening. When they weren’t playing, they were sitting around, talking, not about anything in particular, just sharing with friends and teammates as they’d always done before. Sometimes they would reminisce on some of those former times, and Maya couldn’t help but pick up on some of the conversations, being aware that a lot of those moments they brought up were some of the ones she’d depicted in her sketchbook. But then she guessed it was almost normal, with it all being on their minds.

As all of it was starting to wind down, all of them knowing that sooner or later they would need to pack it in and go home, having school the next day, they did have to come to the side of things they hadn’t wanted to talk about, the thing that seemed to resolve itself to two words: now what?

Here they now found themselves with a great chunk of their lives, which had been reserved already for basketball, for practices and games and such, now opened out, left blank and in need of filling. It wasn’t as though they would sit around and let those periods waste away, rather they found themselves with an opening, which felt like an opportunity. They would have to find a way and do something with it all, wouldn’t they? So, what was it going to be?

No one knew yet, and maybe to some extent none of them wanted to figure it out yet, because once they did, once they did… then it would really be over, done with.

It wasn’t until later that she realized that there was another thing, that happened on that day, beyond the reboot and the game. Nadine had texted her as she was getting ready for bed, telling her how she and some of the others had been discussing the possibility of contesting the school’s decision. They wanted to fight for the return of their teams, of their seasons. It was still far from something made, but if they went forward with it, would she step up with them?

Maya didn’t know what to say, not right away, and Nadine didn’t expect her to. But she would have to think about it now, and Maya went to bed that night thinking about a few things, about this option they were setting before her, and about the change they had undertaken together. The way she saw it right then, the next day would be something great and bright all over again, and she couldn’t wait.

TO BE CONTINUED


	19. Their Days of Moving

What had started as whispers on that Monday evening of rebirth among the players had grown over the days that followed, until it had become something they now strongly considered. They wanted to fight for their teams, had to. They couldn’t just let it go down like this, could they? Just accept this choice that had been made for them and say no more? It would be the easier option, surely, and that would be fine if this thing they were hoping to save wasn’t something they cared about all that much. The thing was that they did care, and very much so, and for that, well… They had to consider it, if only that.

The week had gone just as Maya had predicted it would, much to her relief. After the impromptu gathering they’d had on Monday afternoon, it did sort of feel like things had taken a turn so sudden and decisive that they were in no danger of falling back down… she hoped… oh, how she hoped. There was this little thing growing in them, this desire to fight for what they’d lost, this chance that they might not lose it after all, and it was very powerful.

And still… Was it just self preservation, or common sense maybe, that some of them reserved at least some amount of doubt? They could go all in with this, believing they would succeed, but what if they didn’t? What would happen to their newly restored joy if they let themselves climb so, so much further away from the ground? They would fall, they would crash, they would break…

But there was no going back anymore, was there? They had opened the subject to discussion, and now one way or another they would have to keep on addressing it, until such a time as they decided what to do, where to go from there whether it meant that they would do something or they would decide to just carry on with what they had.

On Friday afternoon, they had come together again, the remaining players and their official/unofficial bonus member, at the park, at the court where they’d played that day, boys’ team versus girls’ team. The plan was to talk it out, openly and honestly, and if they felt they were ready for it, they would take it to a vote, to act or to not.

As far as the seven of them were concerned, any one of them could say with confidence that they predicted with fair ease what each of the others would say, where their vote would be cast. Dylan would want them to fight for the teams, and as much as they would know part of that had to do with his own future, and what this would bring him, they knew the boy would do it first and foremost to help his friends. Zay would do the same, sure, although they knew he’d find it harder to decide whether he was doing it more for one side or another. Asher would want to do it to stand by his best friend. Nadine, much as it would pain her to say, would declare that they might be better off leaving well enough alone. And she did always mean to devote herself to her studies above all else… Riley, well she had always devoted herself, too, to the teams, the girls in particular, and she could not see herself not fighting for them. Lucas would fight, too, if not for himself then for the rest of them. And Maya… Maya would follow the majority, which among them meant she was in.

Of the remaining seven girls, five were in, two voted against, and of the remaining seven boys, it was four to three. All together, it made fifteen for fighting, six against, and for that majority, those last six had agreed to stand by their friends and teammates. They would do this… somehow.

It still remained to be seen just what they would do or when, but at least now they had made up their mind to do _something_ , and that was a start.

“We could just show them Maya’s drawings, I’m sure they’d understand,” Dylan had said, in his kindly way. Maya had smiled, nudging her friend’s foot from where she sat, getting a grin back.

“Never stop being you, swear?” she requested, and he vowed gladly that he would do as told.

They hadn’t really had a chance to figure out exactly what they would do on that day, but it felt like they _had_ made some progress, and they couldn’t ask for more. So that was where they’d left it for the time being, and soon they had all started leaving, one pair here and a group there.

“Don’t keep me waiting too long, yeah?” Maya had told Lucas before heading off with Riley and Nadine.

“When did I ever?” she heard him call back, and she threw him a smile. They’d decided it was high time they went in for another ‘capital D Date,’ especially after the mess of the last few weeks, and so that was where they were headed that evening. They were heading home to change now and he would pick her up before too long. This Date was in his hands, and as tended to be the case she had no idea what he had planned for them. All she knew was that he had apparently asked her parents for a bit of leniency on her curfew. She had no clue why it was needed, but evidently her mother and father trusted him enough that for what he wanted to do they had agreed to tack on another forty-five minutes. So now she was even _more_ curious… and anxious… He really had better not be late, or she just might lose her mind, or so she’d tease him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	20. Their Days of Hoping

He came up to the house after having returned home to freshen up and change for his date with Maya. And as this was one of their capital-D Dates, he arrived dressed for the occasion, down to the hat he carried in his hands. It always made her smile to tease him about it, even more so to see it, and right about now, with the weeks they’d had, how could he not go ‘full Huckleberry’ for her?

Then of course she had her own cards to play on these evenings, and she came to the door, in an emerald green dress, her ever lengthening hair pulled back into a ponytail. They couldn’t say which of them had the funniest reaction, whether it was his sort of startled little smile, or her trying to stifle her chuckling over that smile of his… and the hat. He placed it on her head instead of his and she beamed.

“Now I’m ready, let’s go,” she nudged him out the door. After she closed it, he offered his arm and she took it, letting him lead her to his car.

Having that car at his disposal _had_ opened up the possibility for him to expand the field of where he might be able to take her. For that, he had made sure to let her parents know they might be getting home later than they were supposed to. The place he was taking her was a little over an hour’s drive away, and so they took off. When he told her how long the ride would be, the curiosity already active in her eyes seemed to expand threefold. Rather than spending that time with one of them questioning and the other dodging, the radio was turned up, with Lucas lending himself to some singing along that had his girlfriend in stitches.

They arrived, finally, walking into the restaurant he had selected. He explained how, when he’d been younger, they would pass in front of this place whenever they went to visit one of his aunts, and it always caught his eye. But when he’d ask his father if they could go there, he would always say something like ‘maybe someday, on a special occasion.’ They had never gone, and after his aunt had moved, they hadn’t gone past the place again. And now as he had been planning this Date with Maya, he had needed some time to remember the name of this mythical restaurant he’d always wanted to go to. As soon as it had come back to him, he had confirmed that it was still there, and ensured that it really was worth the travel ‘for a special occasion,’ which to him it was, and she soon agreed.

“Is it bad if I really just want to talk about…” he started, and she jumped in at once.

“… the basketball thing, no, yeah, it’s fine, it’s turning in my head, too,” she admitted.

“I just don’t want us to get into more trouble because of this.”

“Well we’re not _in_ trouble right now, are we?”

“Yeah, that’s kind of what I meant. If we did nothing, we would just move on with our lives, and hopefully next year… we’d get the teams back. But then if we don’t do anything, there’s some of us who would miss out, so maybe we _do_ need to do something.”

“And if we do that, then we could get in trouble where we weren’t, I know,” she nodded. “But now we _are_ doing something, we decided.” There was a time, she knew, where her way of ‘doing something’ would almost assuredly have landed them in trouble, big time. But things had changed, and probably for the better in this case, because it left her to look at this situation with a fair amount of restraint.

“If we talk to the principal, all of us, maybe? We know what they told us about what happened, but it just doesn’t really explain why they won’t just hire new coaches and let us play anyway.”

“I was never a big fan of principals myself,” she pointed out, “But even if we’re going in there just as students, not as students who are in trouble, experience tells me they won’t say anything more than they feel they have to. You saw the articles, everything that’s been said, it was kind of vague. I _want_ to fight for it, and I’m going to, but yeah… I’m going into this with some hope, sure, just… not too much that I’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t work out.”

They set aside the subject of basketball soon after that. This was their capital-D Date after all, and that whole situation had a way of bringing down the mood that they didn’t want to submit to. Before long, it was almost as though it wasn’t there anymore, not something they were living through, and instead they were just a boy and a girl in love, spending time together and being happy.

After the dinner was over, they went walking about for a while before heading to see a movie. They would be driving back in the dark, something Lucas tried not to stress himself over too much, because it felt a bit ridiculous at his age apparently. But then he had to see it as his being responsible with his life, and hers, and others’, so being cautious was fair. And as he’d drive along, she would remind him how it wouldn’t be long that she’d be driving, too, and then they could switch off, driver and passenger.

“Unless of course you prefer staying as my driver, in which case I _will_ have to put on voices and call you Chauffeur,” she beamed.

“More hats then?” he chuckled.

“Oh, always, always more hats,” she promised.

TO BE CONTINUED


	21. Their Days of Speaking

Over the weekend, they had worked at their argument, the reasoning they would present to the principal on Monday, as they had decided. This had been left in the hands of the representatives selected from each team, Julianne and Maya for the girls, and Étienne and Asher for the boys, although many more of the others had pitched in here and there, calling, or texting with some anecdote or another. The more they worked at it, the harder it became to imagine that they could ever be told no, but then they had to keep that possibility as something… well, possible. As hard as they were working, it might all be for nothing. That wasn’t going to stop them trying.

When Monday morning rolled around, Maya was a nervous wreck. She’d been up at the crack of dawn, showering, looking through her clothes for what might be the most appropriate for this meeting, and then working her hair into cooperation, which for some reason, on this day of all days, was just not happening. Her mother had finally decided to come in and help her when, as she put it, she was concerned that hairbrush would end up in a thousand pieces.

Lucas arrived to find his girlfriend sat in the kitchen, reviewing notes while her mother brushed through her hair. Catching on the very present layer of nervous energy coming off of her, he knew there’d be no point asking how she was feeling about that day, and whether or not she was ready. The best he could do was keep to her side and let his confidence in her radiate from himself as her nervousness did from her.

Once Katy Hart had completed her work, Lucas and Maya took off for Riley’s and then school. Riley’s leading mood was encouragement, of course, and she seemed just as aware of the need not to point out how frazzled her best friend looked, although in Riley’s case it appeared to be just a bit harder to keep it all held in… Okay, more than a bit, but she still managed to keep it together, and they reached school without incident.

Julianne, Asher, and Étienne very quickly joined Maya, and they marched into the school and off to see the principal. The earliest they got in there, they figured, the best chance they had to get this going as soon as possible, the better for them not to miss much of class.

Not being part of that quartet, Lucas thus headed into chemistry class not knowing what would be happening over there. He found it so much harder than usual to focus on what was happening around him and he almost did cause an incident like the ones Riley had been worried she would cause herself all along.

After getting out of chemistry, he went in hopes of finding Maya for a minute before algebra, only it was Nadine he found, and she informed him that Maya had yet to return, that she hadn’t been in _her_ chemistry class at all, and by the looks of it she wouldn’t make it for the start of algebra either. So, he went to his class, ready to wait again for her to text that the meeting was over.

Landing in third period French, the first of the two classes they shared, he was informed by Rebecca that Maya had not been in AP Algebra either. That was two whole classes now that she’d missed. Had they been talking to the principal this whole time? How long was it going to take before…

“Maya, you’re back!” Riley’s voice behind him sent him twisting around to find she’d just walked into the room, and quickly Lucas, Riley, Dylan, and Rebecca gathered around the blonde to hear about how it had all gone.

“Can… can we wait until lunch time? Then we can get everyone together?” she replied, but even as they agreed to this, they didn’t have to wonder what the answer had been from the principal. They only had to look at her to know they wouldn’t be getting the teams back this season.

Lucas would watch Maya as they sat through third and fourth periods. She didn’t look unwell, unfocused. If anything, concentrating on whatever they were being told about or asked to do seemed to be all she wanted to do. So that was what she was going to do, and he was going to help her do it where he could. Finally, when the bell rang and they got set to leave history class, he found her hand and she squeezed his with a small sigh.

“Maya…”

“I’m okay,” she assured him without his having to ask; she knew he’d have been concerned, one of the many reasons she loved the guy.

The teams had been summoned, a text telling them all to get their lunches and meet outside. As much as the quartet would take the time to explain what had gone down at the principal’s office, it became clear that they had all figured out the answer itself before they ever made it to this summons. Still, they wanted to know the story, so Maya and the others gave it.

As it turned out, the actual meeting hadn’t lasted all that long. The four of them had waited outside the office before first bell and all through the majority of first period. They had only finally been called into the office a few minutes before the end of what would have been AP Chemistry for Maya and Asher. The principal had heard their piece, not interrupting once. But then, when they had said what they’d come to say, the principal had only been able to sigh and tell them that, unfortunately, as much as he understood what they were trying to say, and as much as he would have wanted to accommodate them and allow the basketball teams to be reformed, it just couldn’t be done. His hands were tied on this one, and as he laid out all that he could tell them, it said for him what he didn’t want to have to say. They could keep on trying, but they would be wasting their time. The best they could do now was carry on with their school year, with their lives, and just let it go. The hope was that they would be able to start again the next year, but for this year it would not be possible.

“What happens from now on is up to all of us, of course,” Julianne said. “But as far as the four of us go,” she indicated the others who’d gone in with her, “We think it might be best we did as the principal said. It’s only going to keep us from doing what we’re supposed to do.”

Looking from one face to another, they could see the great many of the others agreed on this. A few of them looked like they would have wanted to keep on pushing, but then looking to the rest… the fight went out of them, too. Now the best thing they could do was to look to the future and what they would do without basketball this year.

Lunch was a quiet affair, and after they all finished, they started to disperse, though the seven stayed behind a while longer. Knowing she wouldn’t see him again all afternoon, Maya sat there leaning to her boyfriend’s shoulder. She would be alright, she knew. They’d fought well, this was just above their heads. And maybe in the end it would be for the best. It wasn’t as though she had nothing to look forward to. School was keeping her very busy already, and she had her family, and her friends, and she did still work at the diner, and well… soon she would have her first anniversary with Lucas, which really felt impossible. A whole year had nearly flown by already…

The rest of the day, under this spirit, had found its way to normal again, and she was glad. She knew that it wasn’t really over, not for all of them. There’d be those of them dealing with losing this last season before graduation, like Étienne, like Lizzy. There’d be those who saw their future shifting, like Dylan, like Zay. And then there were those, like Scott Shelby, who had been looking forward to trying out for the first time and now had to wait another year… or two… How long would it be before they got the teams back, how long… She didn’t know, and neither did the principal. With any luck, the next year…

TO BE CONTINUED


	22. Her Induction Into Options

Two days later, the Hunter-Harts’ doorbell rang a little after dinner, bringing Nadine into the house, much to Maya’s surprise. Her friend wanted to discuss something with her, so they went off into her room and sat at the window. She had that look about her that any one of them could get at one time or another, which came down to ‘I have had a great idea,’ although when it came off of Nadine Zhu, it had an inevitable… intense quality to it. Not only did she have an idea, but she was very passionate about it.

“I want to start a quiz bowl team,” she declared flat out. Maya blinked. “You know what that is, right?” Nadine asked after a moment, and Maya nodded as though to say ‘yeah of course.’ “Okay, good, so what do you think?” It took Maya a moment somehow to understand she meant to invite her to be part of this team. “I’d been thinking about it for a long time, actually, but with basketball and all, it didn’t feel possible. Now though, well… It’s competition again, just a different kind, you know?”

“Definitely less sweating,” Maya nodded, and they laughed. Nadine still wanted an answer. “Say I agreed to this, don’t we need a coach or something? Also, money?”

“We do, yes, but I’ve been working on that, too. The funding part is looking good, once I lock down some names. As for an advisor, I was thinking maybe Mr. Matthews could do it. I haven’t asked him yet, but maybe you could do it?” Nadine suggested, with a sort of pleading smile.

“And who else would be on this team?” Maya asked, not saying yes or no just yet.

“Still working on that, but I wanted to ask you first, because well… We worked so hard together last year, to get where we got, and I know a lot of that was as much you doing it for me as for yourself, so who else would it be?” Nadine explained with a smirk.

“Aww, shucks,” Maya chuckled.

“So, what do you think? In or out? I don’t want to force your hand, really, if you don’t want to, or you can’t, I mean it, I…”

“I’ll think about it,” Maya cut in with a nod. “But I _will_ talk to Matthews either way, I promise.”

Nadine left it at that for her, and Maya knew her word would be kept, that she wouldn’t try and push for her to go one way or the other, to convince her to do this thing with her. Once her friend had gone though, Maya could only sit back and think about what she’d been offered, and the truth was… she kind of wanted to go for it already. It wouldn’t always have been the case for her, she knew, but it was now, wasn’t it? Nowadays, the idea of joining a team like that intrigued her. And Nadine had hit the nail on the head when she’d brought up the competitive side they had lost when they’d lost basketball. Maya kind of wanted that back, so… why not?

Her friend had not been gone all of ten minutes before Maya went to her parents and said she needed to go to Riley’s to talk to her father for a little bit. She laid it out before them, the reason behind Nadine’s visit and now her intended visit to Mr. Matthews, the formation of the team and her part in it, and _his_ part in it, if he said yes. Her parents were very much intrigued by the potential it presented for her, and in no time, they were all three of them on their way to see the Matthews.

When they arrived at the house, by her request to her mother and father, she had her talk with her teacher one on one, the rest of them, her parents and Topanga and Riley and Auggie, sat in the living room while Maya sat with Mr. Matthews in the kitchen. She didn’t have a whole lot to present him as far as how this whole thing would work, only what Nadine had told her, but she didn’t shy from bringing up the loss of the basketball season and how it had affected a lot of them. And then of course she could bring up the part he’d played in her life, the guidance he’d given, here in Austin, and back in New York, for as long as she’d known him. He would be perfect for this, if he decided to do it.

“What about you?” he asked. “You’re in?” When Nadine had asked her she couldn’t say yet, but now when he asked it, she knew.

“Yeah, I’m in,” she confirmed, smiling proudly. “We’re still a couple members short, but that won’t be a problem for long. Especially now, with our great new advisor,” she spoke with intent, getting that smile off the man they would see whenever they did something or said something that made him happy and glad.

She texted Nadine to reveal to her that she would join the team, and that she’d spoken to Mr. Matthews and he’d agreed to be their advisor. Nadine replied so soon that Maya could imagine her having had the phone already in her hand and typing out her reply with fingers flying across the screen at hyper speed. Her friend was thrilled. She also said she had a few ideas for who else to bring into the team but that she would talk to her about it in the morning, and that if she had ideas of her own, she should get a list going, too. This was their team now, and they would get it off the ground together.

TO BE CONTINUED


	23. Her Induction Into the Group

Two days later, they had locked down the other half of their team. They had considered their candidates long and hard before ever approaching any of them. Their friends had been the first they had ever discussed. Several of them had been eliminated from the running for knowing they either wouldn’t have been available or interested. One or two had been eliminated for knowing they would just get stressed out by the process really.

They _had_ asked both Asher and Rebecca, the most obvious of contenders as far as they were concerned. Asher had wanted to do it, but in the end had said he couldn’t, and they didn’t push him one way or the other. Rebecca, on the other hand, had jumped at the chance, and Maya was glad. Both Rebecca and Joey didn’t always hang out with them, had their own group, but this year, of all her friends, Maya actually had the most classes in common with her, the four of the morning and then photography in the afternoon. For that, she’d gotten to know her more, and she looked forward to knowing her even more now, through the team.

The last spot of their team had been left to be considered a second time once Asher had told them he wouldn’t be able to join them. They’d sort of thought the matter concluded by then and they weren’t sure who they would turn to next. It was sort of by chance that they got their answer, although Maya continued to suspect it had been less about chance and more about their intrepid advisor showing them the way without saying a word to openly influence them. The day before, the three girls seeking their fourth member had run into the teacher in the hall, talking with Scott Shelby.

Mr. Matthews was telling the boy, a freshman to their school this year, how pleased he was with how he’d done on a test, and was also mentioning how he’d heard through other teachers he was excelling in all his classes really. The latest in line of the infamous Shelby siblings to come through these halls, they couldn’t help but keep him in mind these days, with all that was – and wasn’t – happening with basketball. He was meant to be carrying on the legacy of older siblings like Julianne, like the now graduated Nathan, and he’d been looking forward to it, they knew he had. Barring the arrival of some unknown phenom, he’d been more or less guaranteed the spot freed by his older brother on the boys’ team.

After having passed him and Mr. Matthews in the hall, Maya had turned to Nadine, an idea passed on wordlessly between the two of them that could have been reduced to a single word from each. ‘Him?’ asked Maya’s gaze, and Nadine’s replied with ‘Him.’ They’d shared a smirk, turning heel after pulling Rebecca to follow along without a clue of what was happening.

“Scott! Hey, wait!” Maya called to him. He stopped, a tower bordering on lanky though he carried it very well. He looked so much like Nathan that there would have been no doubt who he was the moment he walked into school on the first day, and that might have made it worse for him when the assembly had happened and everyone had found out about the season being cancelled. It was like he’d already been part of the story, and he hadn’t been spared when the teasing had started.

“Hi?” Scott looked at the three of them standing before him, unsure what they wanted with him.

“We have a proposition for you, young Shelby,” Maya announced dramatically. This did not help in erasing the confusion rising on his face, so she smiled and told him about the quiz bowl team they were building up.

“And you want me to be in it?” Scott asked, and Maya and Nadine nodded.

He hadn’t been able to answer them right away, as they all needed to get to class, but then later, as they’d been settling in at their table at lunch, Scott had come up to them and said he wanted to accept, to be part of their team. And that was that, the team was complete. They’d invited Scott to sit with their group, have lunch with them, and so he did. He looked so happy now, and they knew they’d made the right choice.

Now here they were, the next day, gathered in Mr. Matthews’ class, where he wanted to meet with the four of them, as their advisor, letting them know about where they stood, what needed to happen and what was already in the process of coming together.

“We need a name, right?” Rebecca asked, and that became the entire focus of their first meeting. It reminded Maya and Nadine of the ‘struggle’ they and Riley and Smackle had over time, trying to find a name for the band, and how hectic _that_ had been – whether the band had been ‘real’ at the time or not – changing names several times before finally settling forevermore on TXNY. The quiz bowl team name was another beast entirely.

Maya had spent so much time shooting down the oddest names… from Mr. Matthews, of all people… that she half expected them to end up being called ‘You’re not helping.’ They’d had to agree to leave the matter as pending for the time being, but despite this, they felt good about their little team, and they would have their name in time. They were certainly open to suggestions…

TO BE CONTINUED


	24. Her Induction Into Secrets

After the team’s first gathering had come to an end, all of them went their separate ways, headed home. Mr. Matthews asked Maya if she wanted to come over to the house for dinner that night, and when she accepted, he drove her there. After a quick hello to Topanga and Auggie, she went up to find Riley in her room, still working on her homework. When she saw her best friend come into the room though, the books were abandoned so quickly she might have been lucky she hadn’t broken anything in the process.

“How did it go? With the team, with Nadine, and Rebecca, and Scott Shelby?” Riley asked.

“Good, I mean we didn’t do that much, we just talked about team names mostly. Your dad sure has some weird ideas in his head,” Maya couldn’t help but smirk. “I mean some of them I wouldn’t necessarily have minded, but what can I say, I’m like that,” she shrugged. “We still haven’t picked a name, so if you had any ideas, I’d be glad to…”

“Did Scott Shelby have any ideas?” Riley cut in, and Maya blinked.

“Uh, a few, but even he didn’t sound too sure about them. It’s alright though, I mean we’ll come up with something eventually. Remember how long it took us to find a name for the band that we really liked?”

“Yeah,” Riley smiled, remembering. “You guys could get t-shirts, too, like Smackle made for us.”

“We could, yeah,” Maya nodded. She had been thinking the same thing, and she had a feeling she could count on Riley to help her come up with something.

“We’ll need to know Scott Shelby’s size, I mean you, and Nadine, and Rebecca, I already know, and my dad…”

“You keep saying his name like that,” Maya pointed out then. She’d said it that way three times, but Maya was now recalling other times when the boy had come into conversation, and she couldn’t remember a single time where Riley had said his first name alone, always the whole thing.

“Like what?” Riley asked, in what must have sounded innocent to her, but to Maya, who had grown up with her and knew her better than just about anyone in the world, it told a whole another story. When it came to her, she sat up straight, looking back at her friend.

“Wait a minute… Wait a minute, wait a… Riley Iphigenia Matthews…” Maya sat up on her knees.

“That is not my middle name, you know my…” Riley muttered, unheard.

“You like him, you like Beanpole,” Maya declared with a glowing grin. “What do you know, people do go red in the face that fast,” she sat back.

“It’s just warm in here,” Riley tried to shrug but mostly looked like she was having some kind of seizure.

“Sure, it is, you’re radiating more than that thing in the wall,” Maya did not let up. “Come on, you can tell me these things, it’s kind of in the contract,” she held up her hand, showing the ring on her finger. Riley frowned to herself, realizing she’d cornered herself. She turned her eyes back to Maya, gave a shy smile. “If you don’t start talking right this second, I swear to… Dylan Orlando,” she proclaimed the first and purest name she could think of.

“Fine, fine!” Riley sighed. “You remember the day Julianne called everyone to her house and told us about basketball being cancelled?”

“Yeah that one was kind of memorable, actually,” Maya frowned sarcastically.

“I had Auggie with me, and he stayed with Scott Sh… with Scott,” she breathed. “The day after, he came over to the house, to bring some comic books for Auggie, he said he’d promised them to him while they were hanging out.” Maya had been seeing Auggie with the comics in the last few weeks, and she’d had no idea where they’d come from, just figured they were his. “Anyway, it was really sweet, the way he was with him and everything. Then the last few weeks, I would return him the comics Auggie had finished, and he would bring me more to give him, and we’d talk, sometimes about basketball and how he hated that things had turned out the way they did, how he wished he could still play… And he’s been telling me about the comics, too. He really knows a lot about them,” she smiled in such a way that Maya didn’t think she was even aware she’d done it, and she just had to smile back at the sight of it.

“Why didn’t you tell me about any of this before?” Maya asked.

“Did you tell me about Lucas at first?” Riley countered, and she had to relent on that one.

“Okay, fair. But now…”

“Now nothing,” Riley shook her head. “You can’t do anything, not yet, not… I mean I don’t even know if he… and maybe I’m not really…”

“Do you know why I think you keep saying his whole name? It’s like a shield.”

“A shield?” Riley asked, confused. “From what?”

“From feeling, just in case. ‘Scott Shelby’ is just some guy we go to school with. If he becomes just Scott, then…” Maya gave a swooning look, ‘collapsing’ in her best friend’s lap with a laugh. “You’re all smitten, Honey,” she reached out her index finger to poke her, and Riley ducked out of the way, trying to bat her hand away though not doing much of a job of it. “I won’t tell anyone, I swear,” she held up her ring hand again, and after a beat, Riley took her hand, sealing the deal.

“Not even Lucas?” she asked, loosely enough to let Maya guess she wasn’t in fact telling her to keep it from him.

“Only involved parties, for now,” Maya swore.

TO BE CONTINUED


	25. Her Induction Into Assistance

The next day at lunch, the four had gotten together to eat as a team, the better for them to develop their bond, to make their team spirit grow stronger. For the three girls it was easy enough. They were already great friends, Maya and Nadine especially, and even though she didn’t spend as much time with them as the others did, Rebecca fell into that category, too. Even so, it could be said that they needed to strengthen their existence as a unit, so that was what they intended to do.

And then there was Scott, of course. Over the last year they _had_ sort of seen him around every once in a while. He’d be at his siblings’ games most of the time, and then if they went to the Shelby house they could run into him, same every so often around the neighborhood. Maya had served him a few times at the diner. But despite all this, he was still for the most part ‘Nathan and Julianne’s kid brother’, not his own person exactly. He was… well, Scott Shelby, and he needed to become just Scott to them, same as Riley… sort of same as Riley, except without the whole crush thing.

The crush thing… It was stronger than her, ever since the previous afternoon, when Riley had confessed her secret feelings for the boy, it was as though her best friend mode had ramped up to 500%. Scott was a good guy, from all she knew of him, about as good as she would ever hope for someone for Riley, probably even more, from what Maya had seen of him, and she considered herself a pretty good judge of character. Riley didn’t want her to interfere, and she wouldn’t, not the way her friend was concerned she might, but she could still do this part, right? Just talking, just getting to know her new teammate. She just had to wait her turn, as they all spoke together.

“We should do this once a week or something,” Nadine declared, as Rebecca reached over and snatched up the bits of mushroom she had dismissed from her pizza, knowing she wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole. It was a system their group was very much used to, so much so that when Rebecca wasn’t there with them for mushroom relief but was further off in the cafeteria, either one of the two girls would move to either give or take them away. And when she was nowhere near, the poor little pile would have to find another taker, Nadine would insist on it, would not see it wasted, even if she couldn’t bring herself to eat them. Scott was the only one of them not privy to this habit, and Maya could see the curiosity on his face, not confusion, just the sort of look that said, ‘what’s that about, I wonder.’ So, she explained it to him, and he nodded in understanding.

“Does anyone want these?” he held up a small container showing green grapes from the bagged lunch he’d brought. “My mother put them in there, she knows I don’t eat them.” Maya volunteered herself for those at once. He was not shy to introduce himself into their routine, which she liked to see. When Nadine asked why he didn’t like them, he had a brief awkward look on his face before explaining with a smirk. It seemed that, when he was little, his brother Matt had told him they were eyeballs, had spooked him good. Ever since then, even if he knew it had just been a joke, he couldn’t eat them without thinking about that. The girls laughed, and Maya promised him he wouldn’t have to eat those for as long as he was with them.

“I haven’t met that Shelby,” she thought aloud. There were eight of them, she’d known since the start of the previous year. Getting to know her teammates on the girls’ team, getting to know Julianne, she’d first been introduced to the whole ‘Shelby legacy.’ Three of them had already come and gone through these halls, Matt, and Kate, and now Nathan. Julianne still had two years to go, and Scott was just starting, while they had Allison, who’d just started 6th grade, and the twins, Ruby and Abby, down in 1st grade. Maya and her friends were really familiar with the youngest six, and as for the eldest two, well they were for the most part at the heart of stories they heard, both of them having played basketball at this school.

That train of thought had inevitably reminded her – and, she soon saw, Scott, too – about how that line had been brought to a screeching halt because of this whole situation, and she had to realize their quiz bowl teammate had yet to recover from this, no matter how much he tried to conceal it and act normal.

She wasn’t going to interfere, no. This wasn’t interfering, not at all. She was doing this entirely for Scott. If Riley should happen to benefit from this, well that was just bonus…

“You should come over this afternoon, after school, come play with us,” she invited him, and Nadine backed up this request with a resounding yes. “Totally informal, right up until someone makes a shot, and then it gets competitive like crazy,” she told him, and he couldn’t help but laugh, so he accepted the invitation.

The lunch carried on with conversation, and by the end of it, Maya was certain of two things. The first was that their little team would get along fine, and the second was that she’d had Scott pegged exactly right. She was glad on both accounts. Of course, now the question remained… Sure, Riley liked him, but what would happen if it didn’t go the other way? She hadn’t seen him around her friend enough to know, and trying to bring her up now, well _that_ would feel like interfering. She’d just have to wait until that afternoon and see, wouldn’t she?

TO BE CONTINUED


	26. Her Induction Into Mischief

She’d gotten so caught up in her afternoon classes, she almost forgot the offer she’d made Scott at lunch time, right up until she met with Riley again as they headed into the locker room to change and head into the pool. When she finally remembered, she had half a second to keep it from showing on her face with Riley right next to her. For the first time, she had to stop and ask herself whether or not she might need to explain the situation ahead of time, for Riley to understand why Scott would be coming over to hang out and play with them that afternoon.

Now, sure, she couldn’t pretend like part of her wasn’t foreseeing some possibilities coming out of this particular encounter, but it still wouldn’t have felt completely right to just blindside her best friend. She spent the entire period trying to just come right out and say it, but somehow in the echo and the noise of the pool, it never seemed like the thing to do or the place to do it. So, she didn’t. But then the period was over, they were changing back to go and meet up with Lucas, who would drive them to her house, where they would meet the others.

It dawned on her then that Scott had never actually been to her house, and much as she believed he could find the place and not get lost on the way, it did present an opportunity. Now she just had to remember, he’d told them about his classes at lunch, what did he say he had at the end of the day?

“I’m ready, you?” Riley came up to her, pulling her bag on to her shoulder.

“Uh, yeah,” she abandoned her initial plans for a braid and instead willed her still wet hair into as close to a bun as she could manage in a hurry. “Just need to go pick up something on the way out to the lot,” she went on, hooking her arm with her friend’s to lead her along.

“You forgot a book?” Riley guessed.

“Not a book, no,” Maya spoke as they walked, wanting to time things right. “So, you know how at lunch today I ate with the quiz team? Well we got to talking, about school, and the team, and food, and home. Anyway, Scott was looking a bit bummed out about not getting to play basketball at school anymore, so I invited him to come over and play with us at my house today. Hey, there you are!” she spotted him coming from the computer lab.

She hadn’t looked back to see Riley’s face just yet, but she didn’t have to. She could clock it without seeing. She’d have been listening diligently along as they went, and the moment Scott’s name was mentioned she would have gone a bit bug-eyed and flighty, only to halt and ram some form of a normal expression back on her face once she realized he was right there. At this point, Maya was much more curious about seeing what _his_ face would look like.

Scott had turned at the call, unsure he was its target at first until he saw the pair of them. And though she couldn’t tell herself that it was a confirmation in any way, she did notice the slightest bit of a shift in his gaze, from her to Riley, as they came nearer. It could have been that she drew his eyes for the reason they would sort of hope it did, just as it could simply be that he was acknowledging both of their presence. She couldn’t say when she’d made a turn to rooting for the first option over the second, but Maya did sort of hope for it in the back of her mind.

“Lucas is driving us back to my house, you want a ride?” Maya asked.

“Uh, sure…” he agreed, then, “Hey, Riley.”

“Hi, Scott,” she replied, sounding like she’d just barely stopped herself from following into his surname. Maya felt like they’d just gotten another point in the ‘option one’ column.

“Good, let’s go,” she pulled her friend along, while directing the boy to follow them.

As they went through the school doors, Maya could see Lucas in the distance, standing next to his car in the lot… along with Zay and Nadine. She didn’t need to wonder, she knew they were waiting for Riley and her, that they were planning to benefit from the car, too. That would put six of them in the car, which frankly was one too many.

She had to think fast, before the three of them made it out there. In this situation, she knew Nadine would be her savior, and she worked to quickly and directly telegraph what she needed to happen without the two at her side noticing.

_He needs to ride with her._

That was all she wrote, but seconds after she sent the text she watched as Nadine took out her phone, read the message, looked up at the three of them coming, then at once took Zay by the arm and pulled him away, speaking to Lucas what she guessed was something along the lines of ‘actually, we’ll meet you there.’ Just like that, they were gone, leaving Lucas there alone to receive his three passengers. She knew she’d have to explain to Nadine once they met up again, but she trusted her just fine on that front. She would probably have to tell Zay something, too, the poor confused one.

“Hey,” Maya smiled as they reached the car, pausing to kiss her boyfriend. Lucas gave her a look, silently asking what was going on. She replied with a look of her own saying ‘later,’ and he nodded. They got in the car, Lucas and Maya in the front, Riley and Scott in the back, and they drove off from the school lot.

TO BE CONTINUED


	27. Her Induction Into Observation

Maya would have giggled to herself all through the car ride for how it made her feel like a proud mama, looking after her baby girl sitting back there so nervously quiet, next to this boy. Was this how her mother and Shawn had felt, watching her with Lucas sometimes? If it was, then she guessed it explained a lot, all these little smiles she’d catch on their faces. They knew how she felt, and they wanted her to be able to keep feeling it, for as long as possible.

The pair of them in the back hadn’t said a whole lot, the entire way. They would ask one another about school, but the responses would be sort of brief, a little hesitant, like they weren’t sure how much they could say. Once, she’d seen a look on Lucas’ face, like he wanted to maybe jump into the conversation, get it rolling a bit more but didn’t dare to, which was just as well; she was pretty sure she would have tried to stop him if he’d spoken. It needed to stay up to them back there, to get talking, to discover this path of theirs, whatever it would turn out to be.

Despite all this, by the time they did make it to her house, she was sure they were all glad to get out of that car, for their own reasons. For her part, Maya just wanted them to get out of that initial little awkward moment, the better to find themselves again after hanging out with the others for a while. She could just see it happen, so long as they got there…

They were the first ones to arrive, which was to be expected, although it did sort of stand in the way of this whole ‘mingling’ portion of the plan, especially for the fact that, if her parents were there, they’d have to deal with… well, all of that. They’d have to deal with her mother just sort of talking and talking without knowing how to stop, and then they’d have her father, probably staring Scott down with the dad eyes, standing up for his best friend and keeping an eye on Riley.

With some luck, under these circumstances, the house was empty of anything except three eager little dogs. Queen, Ghost, and Tuck turned out to be the best for her to have on hand until their friends arrived. Riley had very happily gone about introducing the trio to Scott, both of them kneeling down to reach for the dogs and hold them. Maya had stayed at the door, with Lucas by her side, and they had looked on, the parental feeling resurging for a second time before Lucas had reached for her hand to pull her back, until they could be out of earshot.

“Is there something going on that I don’t know about?” he asked.

“A few things, probably, yeah,” she admitted, before doing a quick job of explaining what she felt she could. She told him about these two instances she’d happened to come across, the first being that Riley liked Scott, the second being that Scott was missing basketball, and how at that point the only logical step was to invite him to come play with them. “I’m only doing like the most reasonable amount of meddling, I promise. Even if I did have to make Nadine and Zay take the bus to do it,” she innocently added.

“So that’s what that was,” he realized aloud, and she shushed him, briefly concerned that the pair in her room might have heard something. She didn’t have anything to worry about. Riley and Scott were still completely taken up by the puppies. And even better, they were talking to one another. “Who else knows?”

“You, me… Nadine, well I still need to fill in the blanks, but I had to get her and Zay out of there, so… But that’s it, and we should probably keep it that way for now, until something happens, one way or another.” It was so easy to get caught up in thinking that this was the start of everything for the pair of them, but it could also just turn out to be a swing and a miss they would rather not recall.

“Am I supposed to be doing something now?” he asked, and she had to chuckle. They had sort of been in this position a few times already, hadn’t they? As hesitant as he would be, in previous occasions, about them getting involved in something like this, in this case it was her best friend, the one she’d had most of her life. He knew how much Riley meant to her, which had to count for something in her choosing to get involved like this. He knew to just trust her.

“Just be you, you’ll do fine,” she smiled. “Anyway, just look at them,” she turned back to look into her room. “They’re doing fine as it is.”

And they were, too. Riley had Queen in her lap, giving her careful scratches, all the while keeping a hand close to Ghost, who would trot about, tail wagging, always returning to that hand. And Scott had Tuck in his arms, the dog looking like he was very at ease with the stranger. But then Maya remembered that day at the Shelby house, when the teams had been called to meet to receive the news of the season’s cancellation. Maya and Riley and Auggie had been out with the dogs, and at the house it had been both Auggie and Scott who’d looked after them. They were all old friends now, Scott and the dogs. Him and Riley were talking, she couldn’t hear about what. All that Maya knew was that, with how well things were going now, she almost wished the others wouldn’t come. But then this afternoon was for Scott as much as Riley, and she owed him a basketball game…

TO BE CONTINUED


	28. Her Induction Into New Possibilities

On the following Monday afternoon, the quiz team and its advisor met up once again. This time, Mr. Matthews had the four of them answering questions, in a sort of mock-up of a competition, breaking them into two teams of two. Maya was paired with Rebecca, and Nadine with Scott. She had to stop herself from thinking back to what Lucas had pointed out, about how each of them were now or had been part of a pair she had helped to advance, first Nadine with Zay, then Rebecca with Joey, and now Scott with Riley.

With nothing more than bragging rights on the table, the mock quiz had still managed to pry out the competitive streak in each of the four players, some might say too much. Mr. Matthews had gotten that look on his face that seemed to say, ‘we have some work to do.’ They needed to pull that back in, just a bit.

Despite all this, the encounter had felt good, made it all that much more real to them all of a sudden. Maya was surprised by how much she had fun in this scenario, even if it was just pretend as of yet, not a proper competition. It might have seemed like she kept on coming back to the same thought, but she really couldn’t help it. She couldn’t help thinking about the past, the present, couldn’t help thinking about who she’d been and who she’d become and how little they had in common on so many fronts, and school, well, that was the biggest one of all. Before Texas, she would never have found herself in a setting like this and felt so… inspired, excited, devoted…

And she had to think about what her mother had told her, that no matter how much it felt like the worst for her to lose basketball the way they’d lost it, she would find a way to rise up again, to not feel so down. Now here she was, sitting with her teammates, this smaller team but just as passionate about what they did, and she felt like she was flying, out of her depths and into great new unknown skies. Oh, she still missed basketball, and she didn’t think she would ever _not_ miss it in some way, but if she couldn’t have it, then having the quiz team felt like the best alternative.

Suddenly, after weeks of feeling off balance in this new school year, this year that was meant to be sort of special in its normalcy was actually starting to grow, to develop into its own thing, without being weighed down by how it had started. Suddenly, everything was smooth sailing, and much as it could have the potential to feel sort of scary to not go along, scanning the waters for sharks, she was going to sit there and enjoy the sun, see what happened.

The competition had been heated, each of them showing how they more than had their place in this team. To Maya it was reminiscent of how all of them played when they met at one hoop or another, at Dylan’s, at her house, at the park… They all thrived, playing with each other and against each other. Maybe it was for bragging rights’ sake, but one way or the other it was working. Of course, this could all change once it came to the point where they were facing a whole other team, but then they all had that bit of experience, too, didn’t they? And they couldn’t wait to get to stretch out their legs, stand side by side against whoever they’d be put up against.

In the end, much like their friendly basketball games, it was neck and neck right to the end, neither pair holding on to the lead for too long before the other would steal it away. But in the end, it was Nadine and Scott – Team Zhulby, as Nadine would chant – who had defeated Maya and Rebecca – Team Hitz, because merging Fitz and Hart the other way around just felt wrong. Everyone had shaken hands, tossing some playful jabs at one another as they congratulated the opposing team on the match.

The win was celebrated with the ‘losers’ treating the winners to a round of smoothies. Sitting around the table, talking about the weekend that had just ended, and the day of classes which had preceded their meet up. To Maya, it really felt like the team was born that day, became real. Maybe for that, it was also the day where they came up with an official name for themselves as a unit, not just two by two.

They’d been going on about basketball again, as was almost inevitable with three players among their four. The talk had started off as Maya sort of feeling at the subject, out of some curiosity she could no longer fight down after the game they’d had at her house, the afternoon she’d roped Scott into joining them. On the first front, the Riley of it all, it seemed the two of them were growing as friends for the time being, and this pleased Maya to hear, just as it did that, on the ‘cheer him up despite the fact that we lost our season and he lost his shot to join’ front, it had been a rousing success. And from there, the conversation had rolled off like a thing with a mind of its own.

Then Rebecca had sort of chuckled, listening to them. She did jump in every so often, but never all that much, never having been so much into the sport; she was more of a soccer girl. They had interpreted her chuckle as her way of pointing out that the three of them were carrying on while she sort of couldn’t, and they’d sort of sheepishly apologized, but then she had reassured them that it wasn’t like that.

“I think I found a name for our team,” she explained, drawing their attention. “It _may_ have come out of a… tiny bit of frustration, sitting here listening to you guys,” she admitted, tipping her head, “But hey, so long as it works, right?”

“What is it?” Scott asked. Rebecca cleared her throat, sitting up straight before pronouncing herself.

“Basket Cases,” she nodded with a smile. “Get it? Because you guys are a bit… intense about basketball, and then the brainy stuff…” she gestured before looking to her teammates. “What do you think?” They looked from one to another.

“But won’t that be a little unfair to you?” Nadine asked.

“Well I came up with it, didn’t I?” she shrugged, before giving another nod to ask if they agreed.

“Well I like it,” Maya nodded.

“Me, too,” Scott smiled.

“Okay then,” Nadine put in the final vote, and it was made official with the strike of four glasses. Maya had a strong feeling that she’d be sitting in her bay window drawing up some kind of logo by the end of the night.

She ended up doing exactly that almost as soon as she’d finished eating dinner with her parents, suddenly struck with inspiration. She made a few different designs, later to be scanned and sent off to the other three to see what they thought. It reminded her of making posters for her friends, for her teammates, for their families to wave around at the games. Did people wave signs around at competitions like this? She’d have to find out…

Now with their little team getting all grown with a name and everything, it got her thinking about other things she’d been looking forward to. As of yet, only she and Lucas and Farkle had really discussed this idea, but she’d been meaning to talk about it with the others once the school year was well on its tracks. But with the season’s cancellation, and the aftermath, and now the formation of the quiz team, she’d sort of forgotten. Now they had come to a place where it didn’t feel impossible anymore, and she wanted them to start talking about it. After they graduated from high school, not quite three years from now, they wanted to go on a trip, their whole group, or as many of them would want and be able to go, of course. One way or the other, it would take time to plan… mostly, it would take time to earn the money to do it all, and as she and Lucas had agreed, three years sounded pretty reasonable to do that, didn’t it? So, they had better get started.

TO BE CONTINUED


	29. Their Plans to Share

The next day, when Lucas arrived to pick her up for school, he found her with that glimmer in her eyes that told him she had an idea in her head. It was a big one, too, one that had her very much motivated, which made him guess it was only a matter of time before she told him all about it. So, when they were nearly at Riley’s already and she hadn’t said anything yet, he turned to her at a red light with a look of his own, asking what was going on.

“Later,” was all she said, guaranteeing him a day of distraction and curiosity as he wondered what was going through her mind that was so exciting.

That was just what happened, too. One class, two classes, thinking about Maya and the look in her eyes. Then three classes, four classes, the two he had with her, and much as he tried not to he would steal glances toward her every so often in some half-made plea for her to tell him what was going on. Once in French class and twice in History he had been warned to focus on the lesson or the work, which earned him a few low chuckles from his girlfriend.

“Is it later yet?” he asked as they left class to go and have lunch.

“Well if we’re being literal, yes, but if you mean about the other thing, then no, not yet,” she replied.

“Why not?” he asked, and he cleared his throat, trying to expel the slightest whine he’d caught in his voice. Maya had given him a smile and a kiss, promising that she wasn’t trying to tease him, only that she wanted to wait until the day was done, so they’d have more time, wouldn’t be rushed. “Well I get that, but you could still tell me what it’s about until then.”

“I could, yes, but… well… the anxious thing, it’s kind of cute,” she admitted, with a glint in her eye which silenced him at once.

So, taking his patience up with both hands, he’d carried on through the day, through his afternoon classes, until finally they were free to go. He went to stand by the car and wait for Maya as they’d come to do in the last few weeks, on the afternoons where they were both leaving school at the same time, whether it was to drive her home or to whoever’s house they were hanging out at that day. When he saw her come through the doors, chatting with Riley, he wondered if this meant she’d be coming along, but then Riley went off toward the bus stops and Maya walked toward him, so he stood from his lean against the car to greet her.

“Your house or mine?” he asked. She thought for a moment before deciding they would go to his.

They arrived to find his mother getting ready to step out on an errand. She asked the pair of them if they wanted a snack before she left, but they told her they’d be alright, so off she went. Almost as soon as the door had been shut, he turned to Maya, anxious as he’d been all day to find out what she wanted to talk to him about. She smiled, and finally she got to explaining.

“You know how when I came back from the trip with my parents last summer we were saying it would be great if we got to go on a trip like that, you, and me, and the others, after senior year?” He did remember, of course. He’d even discussed the plan with Farkle, so he and Smackle could join them. Then they hadn’t really gotten back to the subject for a while, so he’d forgotten, just a bit, and that was where it had remained, up to now, when she brought it up again. “Well, things are good now, and I thought we should start really figuring things out, if we’re going to do it. It’s going to take time to plan it, to earn the money we’ll need, and for the others to do it, too.”

Maybe for a while he hadn’t believed it would really happen, that it would be one of those things where you wanted to do something, said you would, but never really followed through. But that wasn’t going to be the case anymore, was it? He saw the look in her eyes now and he understood what it meant. She wanted to do this, wanted them all to do this, and whether or not all of them would actually go, _she_ was going to go, that was for certain. And if she was going, well he knew where he wanted to be.

“Why didn’t we get the others together to talk about it then?” he asked, which was as good as his confirming to her that he was in. She shrugged, casually sliding her arms around his waist with a smile.

“Because it was our plan first, you know? And I wanted it to be our plan again for a little while,” she explained, as he closed his arms around her, too. He could stay like this, holding her close, for so long, always feeling in his heart like it was right where he was meant to be.

“Technically, it’s ours and Farkle’s though, isn’t it?” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but he’s not here, is he? Do you want him to be here?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Right now? Not really, no,” he admitted, and she grinned, laughing when he kissed her forehead. Now he knew why she’d wanted to wait, so it could be just them, their plan before it was everyone’s plan, and he wanted it that way, too. But also, there was this part, the boyfriend/girlfriend part. “So, what’s the plan?”

TO BE CONTINUED


	30. Their Plans to Reveal

The next day, the roles had been swapped out, it seemed. Now, both Maya _and_ Lucas were walking around with dreams in their eyes, while their friends were left to wonder what was happening with them without either of them volunteering any information, no matter how much they asked. Lucas had confessed to her, as they waited for French class to start, that he was starting to get why she’d looked so amused the day before. And _she_ had to admit she sort of loved this whole conspiracy thing they had going.

This swerved from fun right into awkward when she realized what the two of them walking around school with those smiles on their faces had been turned into by their friends. Riley, Nadine, and Rebecca had come to find her at her locker before 5th period with expressions on their faces that were as telling as they were confusing. There was curiosity and concern in them, shock and a bit of amazement. Then when she’d asked what that was all about, the three of them had turned to one another as though to ask which of them would actually say something. And a moment later it appeared Nadine had been elected among them, as she looked around the halls, checking to see who was nearby, as far as Maya could tell before the girl and the two at her sides all sort of leaned in to further isolate the question.

“Did something happen?” Nadine asked, her tone low but also carrying that mix of expressions Maya had identified on them before. Although now that she heard them expressed in voice, the suggested meaning it built up to… well, now _she_ was the one checking their surroundings.

“What do you mean?” she asked back, wondering if she was thinking that they were thinking what _she_ thought they were thinking. Nadine looked to Riley and Rebecca again, and their faces only strengthened Maya’s assumption. Nadine appeared to be struggling to even ask the question upfront, and for having known the girl for over three years now, she knew it would take something big to cause her to clam up that way. This already confirmed what she thought they believed before her friend finally tipped her hand enough for her to see.

“Did… did you and Lucas…” she bowed her head and gave enough of a pointed stare that the other words were not needed, and that was just as well.

“Okay, first off, no we did not, and second, why would you think we did… and third, can we not have this conversation anywhere your father could hear and misunderstand and tell _my_ father?” she turned a look to Riley, who shook her head at once. “Or the rest of the school, for that matter.” The girls’ faces released some of the looks they’d had pent up there now, turning almost apologetic.

“We didn’t know what else to think, the way you two have been walking around here today,” Rebecca admitted, and Maya sighed, shutting her eyes.

“Wait, was this just you three talking, or…” she opened her eyes again, looking from one to the next. Again, she found the response in their faces. “You clear it up with the guys, please, before…” Only thinking of Lucas now, she was left to wonder if he was being confronted with the same question out of Zay, and Dylan, and Asher, and… Okay, Joey wouldn’t be there, he’d be red as a tomato just trying to bring up the subject.

Thankfully, it seemed the guys had yet to try and pry some answers out of their friend, and by the time she reached swim class, Maya was assured by Riley that they wouldn’t do a thing. She and the others had corrected the assumption that had been running through their group. Even so, she had to spend the afternoon seeing her friends look sort of awkwardly at her from across classrooms. She was sure that she’d laugh over the whole thing before long, but for the time being she was just stressed and anxious for the day to be over. She still wasn’t sure if she should tell Lucas about all of it or if he should be left in blissful ignorance, but then he had probably been getting looks from the others throughout the day just as she had, so he’d be just as curious, probably even more.

She ended up telling him as they sat in his car – before he started driving, she made sure – and seeing the journey his face took as he processed the story had been enough to get her laughing, as she’d predicted. He started laughing too, after a bit. Maybe in the long run, the brush with the subject would have more repercussions than there were for now, but that wasn’t going to be happening today…

Instead, today was about the real cause behind the great big smiles on their faces that morning. They went and met their friends at Dylan’s house, as had been the plan all along, and there they presented their project for the post graduation trip they hoped to take, all of them friends together. If it had been up to Maya they would have yanked their chains a little while longer, but for the sake of not letting things get out of hand when they were back under control, they decided to let it go and instead focus on the trip, or the start of their plans for it all.

TO BE CONTINUED


	31. Their Plans to Consider

It all seemed very simple on the surface, a group of friends going on a trip together, on their own, off to Europe after they finished high school. Even if it was a few years away still, and by then they would have had the chance to get preparations set… hopefully… looking at all of it from this end of things, it was all sort of… well, overwhelming. As much as a dozen of them, who had never in their lives gone so far, for so long, on their own, not a parent in sight. The more the expanse of their trip grew, in time and space, so did the amount of money they’d need. They could find ways of reducing costs here and there, but to what extent? The way Maya saw it, the vision she shared with Lucas, was of their heading off on some grand adventure, and she wouldn’t have them deny themselves that.

Of course it was all still a dream as of yet, just something in the back of her head finally being brought to the forefront, and before any part of it could be made into anything more, there were some important steps for them to take. Chief among them, they had to know if they all actually wanted to do this – however much the assumption was that they would all be in – and then running it by their parents. Even if by the time they actually went on this trip they would all be adults… sort of… it wouldn’t mean their parents had no say in it, especially for all the stuff that would have to happen in between, with their planning to make their own way, earn their own money.

“What if something happens between now and then?” Asher asked. “I mean three years ago, the two of you were still in New York,” he pointed out, looking to Maya and Riley, “And you didn’t think you’d end up way out here. Three years from now, our entire lives could be different, or…”

He wasn’t wrong, was he? Three years _was_ a bit of a long time, long enough that they couldn’t honestly predict where they would be when they reached the other side of it. They all looked at each other as this sank in, and it was hard not to wonder. What if three years from then they weren’t all this close anymore?

“Ash, man, you gotta warn us before bringing down the room like that,” Zay shook his head, and the others quietly smirked to themselves. It did what it had to do though, breaking them out of that weird headspace they’d fallen into.

“Well I’ll be there,” Maya affirmed. “I don’t care what happens in between, I’m going to be there, with you guys.”

“Yeah, same here,” Lucas backed her up with a nod. “I’m not seeing any life of mine where you guys aren’t my friends, because you’re more than that, all of you.”

“It’ll be nice to relax a while after making it through senior year finals,” Nadine reflected, and Maya chuckled. Of course, Nadine’s concerns would go first to her schoolwork, and right alongside that would be… “I hope my parents will feel alright to let me go. With my sisters and all…”

“Marley will be, what, fifteen by then, she can look after Michaela and Olivia,” Rebecca pointed out, and Nadine looked like she’d been walloped in the face with a brick at the thought of the second-born of the four Zhu girls being that age anytime soon. “Well I’ll be there, I’m pretty sure.” Maya beamed at this. With the formation of the Basket Cases, it wouldn’t have felt right _not_ to have her along.

It also made her wonder if they should be including Scott in this planning. Three years could make a lot of things happen. He’d be in their lives, with the quiz team, and with basketball once it returned… hopefully… and then whatever he and Riley became, if they became anything… Sure, he would only be done with junior year by then, but it should be fine, if that was how it turned out in the end. They’d have to wait and see, hoping that, if it got to the point where he _would_ be someone they wanted to have along with them, he’d have enough time to pull together his share of the funds.

“Riley?” Maya turned to her, asking in this way whether she would want to go, even though she had it on fairly good authority the answer was clear already.

“Of course, I want to go. My parents should be okay with it, right? It’s not like they didn’t do their own thing when _they_ finished high school, yeah?”

All of them, one by one, had pretty much given the same answer. They wanted to, but they would need to run it by their parents to make sure. Neither Maya nor Lucas were spared that fate. They would have to talk to their own families, too. It was very easy to assume that there’d be no issue anywhere, but then they never knew for sure, not until the question was brought up for real.

So, with little more for them to do until they’d extended their intentions to their parents, the conversation had been put on hold, save for all of them throwing around very random and sometimes ridiculous ideas they had as to what they saw themselves doing on this trip, potential places for them to go, things they could do in the meantime besides earning up money. Dylan said that, if they knew where they wanted to go, then they had three years to pick up on whatever languages they could need out there. That was for another time, but it was clear to all of them that there’d be no escaping any of them imagining that trip, that future, and wanting to populate it with details and ideas and plans.

TO BE CONTINUED


	32. Their Plans to Dream

Maya left Dylan’s house with Riley, arm in arm, unable to prevent herself relentlessly teasing her best friend for her misunderstanding earlier that day. At the very least, she knew she could trust that it would stay between them and not send her parents on some kind of… parenting bender or have them start to object to Lucas being anywhere near her. In time, the two girls went their separate ways, each to her own home, where they would both open up the subject of the senior trip to their families.

Maya arrived home to find her father had been waiting for her, to take her to pick up her mother, so the three of them could go pick out and pick up their new kitchen set, following a bit of a mishap over the summer involving Dylan, Asher, and some scampering pups, which had left the table in danger of collapsing. It had since then been a constant stress for Katy Hart, and her husband and daughter at times, too. As it turned out, the table had finally given up earlier that day, hence the journey out to the land of tables and chairs, because apparently matching sets were not only a thing but an important one, too. Add to it the fact that this was sort of the first kind of big purchase they made for the house as a family, and well…

After what felt like half a day but maybe was no more than an hour or so, they were in possession of about nine different boxes which would contain the pieces to turn into one table and six chairs. Not having had enough forethought to see that maybe putting in the delivery fee would have saved them some troubles, getting all of it home had required for Maya to sit just inside the store for a while, as her mother and father drove home with one load of boxes and then another, before picking her and the last load up to head home, where the assembly was to begin, aided by the ‘magic’ of their favorite pizza to feed them first.

As they sat on their old displaced kitchen chairs, pizza plates in their hands, Maya looked to her parents, one and then the other. All three of them were already sort of tired, and it would only get worse once they started putting everything together, but at the same time they were all sort of happy for that exhaustion, if such a thing could be said. Her mother was telling them about her day at the theater, her father was relaying the last moments of the old table, including the loss of the sandwich he’d just made himself for lunch when it happened, causing the two blondes to burst into laughter.

“So how about you?” Shawn asked Maya. “School alright?”

“Yeah, fine,” she shrugged. “Chemistry teacher was a no show, so we got to just work on our papers all period, and I was almost done so I finished it, started reviewing it. Algebra was… well, algebra. Pop quiz in French, History… Mr. Matthews brought a hat, enough said,” she counted off through her classes. Shawn laughed, probably more than familiar with the kind of face it would have inspired in his best friend. The tale of her afternoon classes read like more of basic school fare. Her friends’ misunderstanding left untouched, this brought her to the thing she was meant to be talking to them about, the trip she and her friends were planning.

It didn’t come up into conversation right away, not until later. They wanted to get started on the assembly before it was too late. They each took two of the chairs to assemble and got started. Maya finished hers very quickly and easily. Shawn wasn’t far behind, while her mother was immediately frustrated and ready to abandon all hope. In the end, Maya moved to help her. This then left the three of them to tackle the table together, which was probably just as well. Eventually the table was put in its place, the chairs brought around it, and so it was with the three of them sitting around their new table for the first time that Maya laid out the plan they were all starting to put together, for the trip.

Her mother showed some apprehension at first, at the thought of her daughter heading out on her own like that, but then she had to remind herself that it wouldn’t be for a while still, and that she would be grown by then, and so of course that opened up a whole other thing for her, leaving her to try and be covert as she sank into a pit of ‘my baby girl is growing up.’ It seemed none of them were immune to that one, not any of them here, or her friends and their own families… But then Maya sort of didn’t mind it because at least she got to experience it with her mother and her father here.

Her mother had come around in time, and she would say how she wished she could have done something like that back when she’d been Maya’s age. Her father was just as enthusiastic for her, though she was sure that the closer they got to the trip itself, the more her father would find occasions to load her up with ‘sage advice’ and dire warnings, the better to set her on her way to going on this trip and, more importantly, making it back home safely.

Once she’d told them about all of it, of course, it made it all feel more real, that they were actually doing it, and that had sort of been the biggest incentive behind all of them talking to their families. They were committing to the idea, and there was no going back anymore, whether they wanted to or not, which they did not.

TO BE CONTINUED


	33. Their Plans to Hope

Lucas had given Zay a ride back home, and it was probably a good thing that his best friend didn’t come all the way to his house that day. Once it had been just the two of them, it was clear that the other boy hadn’t completely forgotten the thing they’d all believed earlier that day, and though he’d take great big detours around actually saying what he was talking about, there was no doubting what he was getting at. The whole way it made Lucas more and more uneasy, knowing there would be no way for him to hold his tongue if this carried on, and like Maya, Lucas was not interested in having this subject anywhere near his parents. Oh, he could just imagine what they would say…

After dropping Zay off, he continued on toward home, trying to focus instead on the thing he _did_ have and want to discuss with his parents. The senior trip. He knew Maya would reach out to Farkle and Smackle to let them know about things being a bit more official now, but Lucas did want to talk to Farkle, too, his friend, his brother, back in New York. Before he did that though, he needed to talk to his parents about these plans of theirs, as far as they’d so far made them.

“Hello?” he called as he came in. “Mom? Dad?” His first greeter was neither of them, as cheerful barking introduced his dog Dash, who came running up to him, halfway climbing his legs as she did. “Hey,” he smiled, giving the dog some good scratches, and all were well received and incited more, which was clearly the goal of the growing pet. “Is no one here?” he asked, and the dog took off. Lucas followed, finally hearing voices and soon finding both his parents and his grandfather were in the basement.

“There you are!” his grandfather’s voice welcomed him now, as Lucas saw the three of them were apparently sorting through some of the plastic container bins stacked in the store room. He had memories of the time when his mother had gone to the store, returning with those bins, and then the two of them and his father had gone about organizing and cleaning up down there, swapping old cardboard boxes of mismatched sizes – which were falling apart just a bit, for the cleaner and more uniform bins. He was eight then, and it had taken three consecutive weekends, much as he’d tried to escape off to Zay’s house by the second one. The way they were standing around now, he was getting flashbacks of that day and he wondered if they were in for another round of that. Was it too late to run off?

“What’s going on?” he asked with some hesitation. As it turned out, this wasn’t another spring cleaning in the fall, not exactly. His mother _was_ looking for some items to donate though, and so she had roped the other two into assisting her. Just when he’d assumed he was about to be recruited along with them, Lucas was relieved to hear they were just about done. He was sent back upstairs to check on dinner, which he gladly did.

Soon they sat at the table, the four of them, as his mother relayed the events which had led to the search, along with the items she had selected. Lucas was again relieved, this time to hear that nothing he was all that attached to had been marked for donation.

“How was your day?” his mother finally asked, and Lucas shrugged, saying it had been pretty normal, which it had been, as far as he’d known for most of it. He _had_ noticed the weird looks his friends were giving him, but unlike Maya he’d had no idea what was behind these, not until his girlfriend told him when they were leaving school to head to Dylan’s. He wasn’t going to tell them that of course. Instead, he moved to the subject he _did_ want to share.

“Me and the others, we’ve been talking about something for a while. It started from me and Maya talking when she got back from her trip this summer, but now we’ve been talking to everyone else, too. We want to go on a trip, kind of like she did, in Europe, just the group of us, after we finish senior year. We’ll earn up the money ourselves, all of it,” he explained, looking around to see how the news fared among his family.

His father, as he would have expected, looked at him with interest and openness. He looked impressed with the initiative, though he might have also left room for inquiries, and guidance along the way, which was more than appreciated on Lucas’ side of it. His grandfather thought it was a wonderful idea, called it an adventure, which someone his age should absolutely take. The one Lucas had been most uncertain about had been his mother. Really, her reaction could have gone several ways. She could be completely supportive like she could express great uncertainty that would shape itself into trying to covertly discourage him from doing anything of the sort. In the end, though it started off sounding almost like she was somewhere down the middle, which was really the oddest part of it, she had veered safely into total support, and Lucas had smiled with gratitude.

Now he couldn’t wait to talk to Maya, and to Farkle, all of them… They were really taking off now, their great adventure, just like Pappy Joe called it. Lucas wanted that more than anything. It was something to look forward to, and he knew he would, until finally, after so much waiting, the time would arrive at last, his greatest friends and him, off to see the world…

TO BE CONTINUED


	34. Their Plans to Make

The next morning, as they rode to pick up Riley for school, Lucas and Maya confirmed with one another that telling their parents about the trip had gone fine. Lucas also told her about the basement rummaging and the associated panic flashback he’d had about that time when he was eight, much to her amusement. Maya had brought him into the house before they’d left in the car, to show him the new table, and the chairs, pointing out with comically exaggerated pride to the ones she had assembled herself.

“How do you know which ones they are?” he asked with a smirk.

“Hey, I made these chairs, they’re family,” she shrugged with a matching expression.

“Does that make them my… stepchairs?” he teased.

“Do _not_ step on them, Lucas Friar,” she pointed her finger in his face and he held up his hands in surrender.

By the time they’d finished sharing their own stories of the night before, they had reached Riley’s house, and she came along with her own story. It seemed she’d had the opposite experience Lucas had had. Topanga had seen this opportunity as something Riley absolutely needed to have, especially if she was so determined to make it happen for herself like that. Cory, on the other hand, seemed immediately doubtful of sending his little girl out on her own into the world, even if she wouldn’t be on her own, wouldn’t even be a ‘little girl’ anymore either.

“He’s so going to try and disguise himself and follow us, isn’t he?” Maya shook her head with a sigh.

“Mom said the same thing!” Riley blinked. “She also said she’d make sure he wouldn’t… Said she’d sit on him if she had to,” she frowned to herself.

Arriving at school, they went to their bench, there finding Rebecca and Nadine had already arrived. They both had soccer together in gym class, and they had come in early that day to meet with some of the other girls in the class, so now here they were.

Riley asked them if they had talked to their parents about the trip, and they had. Nadine didn’t have an actual yes on both ends, her mother was still uncertain, but her father was sure she’d change her mind in the end, so really, she considered it as a double yes. Rebecca’s mothers, for their part, had spent less time saying yes – which they had – than they had spent telling her all about another trip, the one where they had met. They’d just finished high school, too, and they’d gone travelling, and by the time they’d come back stateside, they were practically living together, despite living some states away from one another. She’d heard the story a few times before in her life, of course, but she never lost an opportunity to hear it.

Little by little the others came trickling up, and each one was greeted with a request for an answer, like a toll needed for passing. Zay was given a yes, although the surprise in his parents’ faces had left him thinking they didn’t see him as having aspirations of the sort, which might have been more confusing than any other response. Dylan was also told yes, and he, like Asher and Joey, who’d come next, had needed to repeat to his parents how he really wanted to provide for his own way, even though they gladly offered to pay for him. In so little time, the plan had become a point of pride among them all.

Maya also reported that she’d spoken with both Farkle and Smackle the night before, and they were all set as well. They’d actually been surprised, assuming that this was the plan all along. In fact, they’d started saving up money already and were doing pretty well for themselves. So, there it was, eleven of them committed to the trip. Maya turned to Riley, part of her wanting to inquire as to whether or not they might ask if Scott would like to come with them, but that might have been pushing too much, so she held it back. Who knew what the next couple years would hold for them, for all of them.

“I’m not sure we should start planning out all the details of the trip itself for a while, like how long we’d be gone and where we would go. It’s too far away for that,” Asher said, and the others tended to agree.

“But we do need to figure out how we’re going to start earning up the money,” Lucas followed.

“Well I’ve got the diner,” Maya put in. “So does Asher, full time at least.” Nadine still put in the occasional shift, a few others did, too. Asher and Joey’s uncle was good for that, always, but then they doubted all of them would be able to count on that option at once. Getting jobs was definitely going to be needed, not just for the trip’s sake.

“We could have a garage sale,” Dylan piped in with a nod. Maya threw Lucas a smile at this, knowing he’d be thinking about his mother and the bins in his basement. But again, the idea was welcomed, and they would figure out when and how to do this in time.

By the time they had to go into school for the day, things felt like they were coming together, and that was good. They could move forward on to the next phase. Whether their band of eleven would grow or shrink by the time they actually went on this trip, they could only wait and see what time brought them.

TO BE CONTINUED


	35. Their Plans to Imagine

That evening, Maya was to have dinner at the Friar house, and so she and Lucas had gone back there after hanging out with their friends for a while. Mr. Friar was off running some errand for his wife, who was busy at work – in hostess mode, as Lucas would tell Maya – and so they ended up off in Lucas’ room, where they set out to do their homework. Even before this year, as she’d been preparing for this for so long, Lucas would tend to finish much quicker than Maya would, and so he would sit at her side and try to keep himself occupied as quietly as possible, so not to bother her. For her part, she kind of liked having him there anyway, so it worked out perfectly for both of them.

Every so often he would steal a look, trying to see how much more she had left to go, which was easy enough now, as he’d learned her routine. When he could see she was on the last thing, he would sort of resettle his sitting position, and she’d smirk to herself.

“There, all done,” she would declare victoriously, closing her books and returning them to her bag with the accomplishment behind her, punctuating it by leaning fully to her boyfriend’s shoulder. He’d take her hand and she’d hold on gladly. “Were you texting with Farkle?” she asked today, and he nodded. “Did you tell him about what we all talked about?”

“I did. He said if we needed any advice we should call him.”

“Of course, he did,” Maya laughed, thinking of her friend back in New York. “Do you think we’ll leave right after graduation? Not the same day, of course, but maybe a few days after?” He gave her a look she read as ‘isn’t this a bit early to talk about?’ “I can’t help it,” she admitted with a grain of sheepishness which was guaranteed to be seen as adorable by him. “I know it’s so far away, and we said we couldn’t come up with all the details for a while, but I just keep imagining it.”

“Yeah, I do, too,” he admitted back. She sat up, curious.

“What do you see?” she asked.

“Well… I think about all the letters you sent me when you were on your trip last summer, the little doodles of you and me in all those places, and how we could actually make those real.” She nodded at this, then just as soon let go of his hand to scoot back to her bag and fish out a notebook. “What are you doing?”

“Taking notes, force of habit,” she explained, and he smiled. She opened to a blank page and marked it _Senior Trip To-Do: Boyfriend Edition_. He had to laugh, leaning to press a kiss to the side of her head as she went on to note his idea. There was no guarantee they would end up going to all those places with the others, too, but if there was any way for it to happen, oh, they would do it. “Anything else?”

“That’s all of it so far,” he shook his head. “You?” She thought for a moment, then got to writing again. He leaned in over her shoulder to try and see, only to get a face full of the palm of her other hand, keeping him from seeing. “Hey!” he complained, his voice muffled.

“Shh, it’s a surprise, it’s… hey!” she held the notebook away when he tried to reach for it, “You have to wait.” Now he was the one making eyes at her, pleading just a bit, but she shook her head, giving him a kiss for his troubles. “Do you trust me?” There was no need to think there, and he nodded at once. “Good,” she smiled, “Then you can wait.” His posture said plainly he wouldn’t try and reach for the book, though a moment later it was abandoned there on the ground as she moved to kiss him again, and his arms were made to reach to hold her close rather than to attempt and get a hold of that notebook.

More and more it seemed they would find it much easier to end up getting lost in these moments, where the world sort of faded away and all that mattered, all that existed, was him and her, was a kiss, and breath, a touch, and feeling… It used to be that he would be hesitant to hold her too close, to rest with her, but that wasn’t so anymore, and certainly not that day as they lay there, wrapped up in one another’s arms, kissing until breath was a rare commodity. It used to be that he would hold her, his hands staying much where they would, around her back, but then with time they had taken to migrate, only so far as to hold her face, or just under the hem of her shirt, just as _her_ hand would seem to favor resting against the place where his heartbeat could be felt.

When on that day his hand, following the thrumming of his heart and the trace of her spine, had brushed without intent against the very edge of what they both realized was her bra, the world rematerialized around them with such speed that they both froze, their eyes opening and meeting at once. Out of breath, they stared at each other, and then they moved apart, lying quietly, save for the breath that was working to return to them both. They stared at the ceiling, waited…

“Lucas?” she spoke after a while.

“Yeah?” he replied. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I… I just need to…”

“Me too…”

Silence, again. Was it their friends’ assumption, still on their minds? They hadn’t exactly addressed it, the two of them, had they? Now it felt like maybe they needed to.

“You know I would never… if you weren’t…” he turned his head to look at her.

“No, no, I know,” she looked back at him. “I wouldn’t either,” she vowed and he bowed his head. He could see a thought working its way through her mind still, struggling to come forth, but now that it was sort of on the table for them to talk about it, it almost felt like they needed to use that opportunity. “Do you… do you ever think about it?” she finally spoke, and her face said the rest. _Really, you can tell me._

“I…” he hesitated at first, but then, “Yeah…” They were being honest, right? They weren’t always going to be able to hide behind shyness and time. Here they were, nearly a year a couple, but then sometimes he couldn’t help but feel like the count started on the day they’d kissed in New York. And now they were planning this trip almost three years away, and it was forcing them to look to the future, their futures, as people, as friends, and for the two of them as a couple… He didn’t think it too forward to claim, if only to himself as of yet, that he saw the two of them being in this for the long haul, and sooner or later, there would come a time where there wouldn’t be any stopping or hesitating. And he had thought about it, yes, he couldn’t deny it, even if a thought was all it would be for the time being.

“Me too,” she admitted right back, and for a while they just lay there, with their returning breath and their mutual revelations. “You know, just because we don’t… yet… that doesn’t mean we can’t keep…” she motioned between the two of them, calling back what they’d been up to up until they’d been brought to a halt.

“No, absolutely,” he agreed, and she laughed. He found her hand again, and she held on. All this talk of the future, it was going to keep creeping up on them, wasn’t it? “Hey… I’m glad we talked about it, you know?” She nodded, agreeing. “Probably best we don’t talk about it with the others though…”

“Yeah, no, we got lucky as it is with their whole misunderstanding,” she sighed.

“So… can I see the list now?”

“Yeah, still no,” she crooned, and he cranked up the pity pout. “That is not going to work again today, Huckleberry. Besides, we’re going to get called for dinner before long, it might not be a good idea to show up down there all sort of breathless and blushing,” she gestured to her face and his.

“Okay, fair enough,” he sat up, helping her do the same.

“Hey,” she reached to the front of his shirt, pulling him until they were eye to eye. “I really love you so much, Lucas Friar.” He smiled, his brightest smile always for her.

“And I really love you so much, Maya Hart. And I can see you hiding that notebook…”

TO BE CONTINUED


	36. Their Work to Employ

There was something sort of wonderful about those days working at the diner, with her friends all piled up in one of the booths, those who weren’t working same as her of course. Today, Asher and Nadine were both in the matching red and black shirts with the diner’s logo on the front.

It was really the word for it, wasn’t it? It was wonderful, for all it lacked in the way of excitement. It was peaceful, even in rush times, at least to her. As tired as she was sometimes when her shifts would be over, she’d feel it like an accomplishment more than anything.

At the same time, she couldn’t help but remember her mother’s days as a waitress, how it seemed to drain her sometimes. Maya only did this on weekends and some days after school of course, while her mother would do this, day in, day out, as much as she could in order to provide for her. When Maya would come home after one of those tiring days, as content as she’d be, she would find her mother there waiting for her and all she’d want to do would be to reach for her and hold her, thank her, for the work she’d done. They’d left that life behind when they’d left New York, and maybe if she’d had this experience to back her up, she might have been that much more thrilled for her that she got to go and do work that actually motivated her and made her happy.

The booth where the others sat was hers to serve, and as she approached with a plate of fries and a couple of drinks, the six of them sitting three by three on either side of the table were going on about the movie theater. Rebecca had been hired there just the week before, and it seemed there was the chance of one or two more positions open, which meant of course that some of them could soon find themselves some work of their own, all the better to start putting money aside for their trip. Now it was only a matter of seeing just who would get to have their shot. The way they were going on about it, one might have believed Rebecca was the one who actually had a say in the matter.

“Now, I know he’s your boyfriend,” Zay was saying, pointing to Joey – who looked like he didn’t want to be there – when Maya reached them, “So does that mean he’s going to have more of a shot than the rest of us?”

“Maybe he should,” Maya told him as she set her load down on the table, giving Zay’s shoulder a nudge. “Behave, Isaiah, or no more fries for you.”

“You wouldn’t,” he stared back at her.

“Wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t I also tell Nadine and Asher to do the same?”

“Okay, _Nadine_ wouldn’t,” he countered, looking back to his girlfriend across the diner.

“Wouldn’t she? _Wouldn’t_ she?” Maya smirked before moving off again.

Maya was sort of glad she’d already had a job before this whole thing had started. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe she would have found one if she’d had to find it, but at least she didn’t have to be caught up in that little free for all happening at the corner booth. She was just waiting for the moment when Lucas would slip away to come and see her so he could get out of there for a bit. If she had it right, it would be any second now…

He didn’t so much announce himself as she heard his stride and recognized it, right before hearing a sigh and the creak of someone sitting at the counter behind her.

“We are way too young to sound that worn out,” she teased, turning to find him sitting there with a frown on his face. “You can have Zay’s fries when I cut him off,” she leaned in to whisper, and he smiled. “Come on, perk up, Huckleberry,” she instructed him.

“Oh, I’m trying. Just like I’m trying not to kick some of them under the table,” he informed her, making her laugh.

“Well then I applaud your self-control. I would have kicked ‘em a long time ago.”

He watched her work for a while, chatting along whenever she’d come to the counter, refilling ketchup bottles while she was going between tables and the kitchen. The way he had it, the rest of them back at the booth would hardly miss him so long as they were in the middle of this job talk, going like some great big negotiation, and so long as it was that way, there was nowhere else he’d rather be than with his ketchup and his girlfriend. He’d been looking for work, too, and he would find something all his own.

“I think you can go back now,” Maya stopped next to him after a while. “Want me to go check?”

“I’ll go,” he got up. “You just want to kick someone.”

“Maybe they just really deserve it,” she shrugged, the picture of innocence. “I’d be doing them a favor, and you, too.”

“Thanks, I think I got it,” he assured her, giving a quick kiss. “What time do you get off?”

“Got like an hour left, you waiting for me? You could come have dinner at my house…”

“Alright, deal,” he nodded before returning to the booth. As it turned out, Joey didn’t even really want to work at the movie theater, which Zay would have known, if he’d stopped to think about what Joey Garcia was like around people he didn’t know and just how many of those he’d have to deal with if he got a job like that. Whoever did or didn’t get the one or two spots at the movies, Riley, Dylan, and Zay were all planning to go in on it. Lucas would throw in his name, too, and then they’d just have to wait and see.

TO BE CONTINUED


	37. Their Work to the Theater

Asher’s uncle would say it was in the diner’s best interest, more often than not, to sit families with little children in her section, as she had something of an affinity with them that some of his other servers lacked. She might have thought that distinction would have gone to Nadine, her with her little sisters she cared for so often, but as it turned out, when it wasn’t her sisters, her patience with children was something of a coin toss. In Maya’s case, maybe it wasn’t always so much about patience as it was about finding the thing that would get the kid under her spell, and she could always find that.

That day, with very little time left to her work shift, she had a table come to test that theory as strongly as she’d ever seen it. A mother and father had come along, with six children between them, ranging from age two to eleven, if she had to guess. Multiples were always an additional challenge, as trying to ingratiate herself with one would leave her open to the activities of others, as was the case here, when she found herself having to pick up a spill – if she could call it that and not a launch, which was what it really felt like. Asher hurried up and assisted her, and she thanked him profusely.

“I’ve had them before,” he told her, which she took to mean something like this had happened then, too.

“Right,” Maya breathed, looking up just in time to spot a familiar blonde coming through the door. “Do you have this?” she asked Asher, nodding to her mother now just inside. He looked, then gave her a nod and a chuckle. “Mom, hey…”

“Oh, what happened here?” Katy asked, noticing where she’d come from.

“It’s fine, it’s handled. What’s up?” Her mother took a moment to remember what she’d come for, then smiled, looking around to find… She made a small sound that sounded like ‘ah!’ and walked off toward the corner booth, leaving her daughter to follow after her.

“Hey, guys, how’s it going?” Maya’s friends looked up, surprised to find her here, much as Maya herself had been, but they explained how they were trying to figure things out for getting jobs. “Good. Good! That is actually what I’m here to talk to you about,” she went on, wearing that look on her face which Maya recognized as her proud sort of ‘I did something helpful’ smile. “I asked at the theater if we might be able to hire on a couple of kids, maybe needing some work experience, and some money, of course,” she started, now drawing everyone’s attention. “And they said yes,” she revealed, before turning to Zay. “Now, I know back in the day I told you how you had a future in the theater world, which I still stand by, by the way. This wouldn’t be exactly what I had in mind, but if you were interested, I think…”

“Yes,” Zay sprang to his feet, startling those sat on either side of him. “Yes,” he repeated.

“Good!” Katy pressed her hands together. “That leaves one more… Yes?” she turned to the one who’d raised his hand, with a little surprise. “You want to work at the theater?” she asked Joey, trying not to sound like she’d have tacked on a stunned ‘you?’ on the end of that question.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “I-I do theater at school,” he added after a moment, and this solidified his qualifications well enough, so, with a promise that she would give the boys’ information over where it needed to be, she wished her daughter’s friends a good day before turning back to Maya. “Do you want me to wait to drive you home?”

“I sort of invited Lucas over for dinner, so he’ll take me when I’m done,” Maya told her, so her mother left to see her there. Once she’d gone, it felt very much like Hurricane Katy had swept through. After a moment, Maya remembered she was still on the clock, and she moved to look after her customers.

She _had_ told her mother about how all of them were looking to get jobs, the better to earn up for their trip, never expecting she’d go above and beyond like that, but maybe she should have, shouldn’t she? It was exactly the sort of thing her mother would do, and Maya told herself she needed to hug her and say thanks once she got back home.

If she had the count right, this meant that if two of them got hired at the theater, and two at the cinema, then only one of them would still be in need of a job somewhere… Maybe they could get one more hire here at the diner, that’d be easy enough…

By the time she was able to leave work that day, all but Lucas had left, and she could look forward to dinner with him and her parents, followed by a movie or two maybe… A nice, quiet evening, that was all she could ask for right then. There was always something about getting to sit there, the four of them, and having it feel like the most natural thing, like Lucas belonged in their world so fully, which of course he did, in hers most of all. She definitely didn’t have to worry about Lucas getting all flighty whenever Shawn would so much as look his way anymore… although that _had_ had its merits, mostly to get her laughing. She wouldn’t mention it that way to either… no matter how many more laughs it would give her.

TO BE CONTINUED


	38. Their Work to Assist

When Lucas returned home later that night, after two movies and a dinner at the Hunter-Hart house, he was greeted by his mother. The look on her face told him plainly she had been sitting in wait for his return, so anxious to reveal something to him that it was a wonder she hadn’t run off to tell him when he was still at Maya’s. It was the sort of look which, if turned on inexperienced recipients, would cause them to turn and run from its intensity.

“Hey… Mom…” Lucas spoke, a seasoned veteran with these looks.

“I found you a job,” she announced, no preamble, no hello, just word eruption, followed by a smile.

“You did? Where?” he asked, apprehensive. At this point, it was a coin toss whether this ‘job’ would be something good or something terrible he would be saddled with, because one way or the other, as it came from her, he had a good feeling it would be difficult to refuse it.

“At the museum!” his mother went on, ushering him into the living room so they might sit. His father was already there, reading a book, and he looked up when they came into the room, passing a wave as greeting to his son rather than speak when he knew his wife would cut him off before long. “It occurred to me that they still owed me for that fiasco with you and Maya last year, you know, with the rain?”

“Yes, I remember, Mom,” he couldn’t help but smile for a moment, recalling the first date nearly ruined by that sudden torrent of rain, where the pair of them, soaked to the bone, had persisted on their way to the museum, only to be turned around by one of the security guards. “I thought they’d already ‘repaid’ you when they let Maya and me go around there on our own…” he pointed out.

“Oh, well that wasn’t going to be enough, now was it?” his mother laughed like he’d said something funny. Lucas looked to his father, who could only shrug. “Now, I spoke with them, suggested they could do well, bringing on my son, such a polite and well spoken young man, in some part of their team, and they agreed. How would you like to be a tour guide?” she asked. “It’s mostly memorizing the facts, keeping an eye on your group, I think you would do very well, and you will look so dashing in that blazer.” This time, Mr. Friar couldn’t hold quiet, though all that came out was a stifled chuckle.

Much as he would have wanted to find his own job, Lucas couldn’t deny that his mother’s assistance in securing the museum job for him was definitely interesting. That museum had always had a special place in his heart, ever since the first time he and his class had gone there, the day he and Maya had run off on their own, the better to go and find ‘weird stuff.’ Then it had become part of their first date, if not how they would have wanted it to be, and then for real, the second time, through his mother’s intervention. It only seemed right that this would be the next step in his connection to the place, right?

“That sounds great, actually,” he finally told his mother, and she looked so happy to hear it that it almost made it all worth it already. “Thanks, Mom.” She hugged him at once, teetering him about as she did.

“You are so very welcome my Luke,” she replied, still hugging, and Lucas knew she would keep holding until he reminded her to let go.

Once he did find release and was able to go up to his room, he instantly sent off a message to Maya, asking if he could call. When she replied that he could by calling him, he relayed the conversation he’d just had along with the news of his now having a job. He would have expected her to be surprised, but he was almost _not_ surprised that she wasn’t. She said she’d had a feeling his mother would find a way to do something, much as her own mother had done earlier that day.

“They probably came up with that plan together,” she pointed out, and now that he thought about it, she might have had a point. His mother and her mother had been friends, these past few years, none more so than since he and Maya had started dating, and they both sort of had their own version of intensity in them. So, of course, they would have plotted to participate in what way they could in getting them on their way.

“I was thinking you could help me with the memorizing of the tour, we could go to the museum together next weekend,” he suggested.

“I like that plan,” she replied, and he smiled to hear the smile in her voice. “Just so we’re clear, I _will_ quiz you, and I _will_ be relentless.”

“I wouldn’t ask for anything else,” he promised.

“Does that mean I’ll get in for free from now on? Girlfriend privilege and all?”

“I’m pretty sure by now my mother got the both of us free admission for life.”

He went to bed that night, still thinking about the job, about walking through with big groups and small groups, pointing to one painting or another. In his dream, somehow, all the people in the paintings looked like his family, his friends. None would be more popular to his dream group than the ones showing a beautiful blonde who looked just like his girlfriend. Oh, he could go on and on about that one…

TO BE CONTINUED


	39. Their Work to the Cinema

Soon came a Saturday where, having the afternoon off from the diner, Maya joined her friends to go by the movie theater. Their outing’s purpose was two-fold. Of course, they would go and see a movie, but really at this point it was something more like an excuse. What they really wanted to do was to see their friends hard at work.

Per Rebecca’s assistance, it had been two more of their group who had been hired on to work there with her. With Zay and Joey taken on at the theater with Maya’s mother, and Lucas learning to be a tour guide at the museum through _his_ mother, it left both Riley and Dylan with the way wide open in front of them to get the jobs at the movie theater, provided that the manager agreed to take them both on, which was the only part of the plan that could have brought it all to a grinding halt. Thankfully, that hadn’t been the case. He’d hired them both, and so all of a sudden, in what felt like much less effort than they would have expected it to require, they were all of them employed and, as far as they were concerned, one step closer to getting on that trip.

“Alright, where are they?” Maya’s eyes scanned about as she, Lucas, Nadine, Asher, Zay, and Joey came through the doors. As was almost reflex to her, every time she came into this place, she would briefly turn her gaze up to the ceiling, the one that had caught her marvel three years prior.

“Dylan might be in one of the theaters,” Asher guessed. His primary task was to go through after movies ended, picking up abandoned snacks and drinks, sweeping up… From what he’d told them, it seemed he really liked doing it, which was just about right, coming from him. “But there are the girls,” he pointed to the concession stand, where they looked and spotted Riley at one of the registers, and the back of Rebecca’s colorful head at the popcorn machine.

Once they had their tickets, they’d made their way up to the concession stand, splitting off three and three, to both their friends’ lineups. Maya, Lucas, and Zay came up to Riley’s. The girl was so caught up in everything that it wasn’t until they stepped up to the counter that she looked up and realized it was them. When she did, she beamed at once.

“Hello, how are you today?” she began, in a tone that reminded Maya so much of when the two of them would play restaurant when they were little. She nudged the boys aside, the better to step up and fill her role in the same fashion.

“I’m very well, thank you. What’s good here?”

“Everything. Everything’s good. Oh, except the nacho sauce,” Riley wrinkled her nose. “But that’s between us,” she whispered with a nod, and Maya nodded back.

“But I like the nacho sauce,” Zay complained, and Lucas shook his head.

“What can I get you?” Riley asked.

“The usual?” Lucas shrugged. In the many times all of them had come here over the years, it was hardly ever the case that they ever got anything different than what they always did, which Riley would know, although by the look she got, Lucas guessed he might have assumed wrong. Maya turned to him with a helpful look on her face.

“You have to pretend like you don’t know her,” she whispered.

“Right. Sorry,” he nodded, catching on.

Soon they had their snacks and reunited with the other trio. As they reported, Rebecca was doing very well, too, an old pro already. Now all they had left to do was find their theater and go wait for their movie to start, but what they wanted at this time, really, was to find their third friend working here this day.

They all crowded up, sitting on the ground outside the doors to theater seven, with their stock of snacks, waiting to be allowed in, though Asher had almost just as soon gotten back up to his feet to go and poke his head in, here and there, hoping to find Dylan. It was something of a show in itself, watching him sneak about, so not to get in trouble, but then this was Asher Garcia, Mr. Connection, and they knew him enough that he should be fine… hopefully.

“He’s in five now, he’ll come see us when he’s done,” he reported when he came bounding back, dropping down where he’d been sitting, picking at his popcorn.

Dylan finally emerged, hauling a large trash bin and a broom. He had his hair pulled into a short ponytail under a cap, which they had never seen on him, so used as they were with him having that hair flying about. It made him look so much more serious somehow, right up until he turned to see them and he smiled, and then there was their Dylan again.

“Licorice?” Nadine held out the long red candy. He took it happily, dropping into a crouch next to them. He told them about how someone had dropped their full popcorn up in the top row, and it had somehow trickled down, from row to row, down to the bottom. He sounded so cheerful about it that several of them momentarily thought to spill things just for his sake before admitting to themselves that it would have been a bad idea, as well intentioned as it would have been.

Before going into theater seven, they left a message with Dylan, to relay to the girls, that they would be waiting for them at the Garcia house when they were done here for the day. Maya had recruited the rest of them in her efforts to prepare Lucas for his tour guide duties at the museum, and they would not want to miss that.

TO BE CONTINUED


	40. Their Work to the Museum

Maya would have been up and ready well in time if she’d known to be, but that morning, Lucas arrived with the intent to surprise her. So, she was still in that sort of halfway awake and asleep kind of state when the chirp of her phone came along like someone nudging her awake. She reached for her phone with a blind hand, pulling it within inches of her face to see what the message was about.

_Want to go see some weird stuff?_

She had a sleepy smile, wondering what her boyfriend was up to, turning on to her back so she could type out a response, which was really another question: _When?_ Her response came when she heard a light rap at her window, and she turned her head to see him there, brandishing two paper cups. She did have to work that day, in a few hours, so she had to guess he’d taken that into account. She held up her hand. Five minutes. He nodded and then walked off.

Five minutes later, she was out the door, still not entirely sure what was happening but at the same time not caring in the slightest. She was ready for anything he had for her. She sat in the passenger seat and he handed her a cup, good and warm in her hands and doing its work to pull her further into waking.

“Where are we headed?”

“The museum. Wanna be my test subject?”

“You mean your guinea pig?” she smirked. He shrugged. “No, you’re right, test subject sounds better. Let’s go.” He handed her the paper bag which had been sitting between them, and she found he’d also brought her breakfast, which she ate as he drove.

The museum wasn’t open yet, wouldn’t be open for a while either, and that might have been the best thing she could have asked for, getting to go in there when no one else could. As Lucas explained it, he’d been allowed this, the better to prepare for his start as a guide. They weren’t completely alone in the museum of course, and when they crossed the security guard – who had once turned them around and made them leave – and he waved them through, Maya couldn’t help but grin. No matter how much time passed, how many times they crossed paths, there’d always be that little ‘ah ha!’ moment.

“Hold on, no, no, where’s your blazer?” Maya asked, when Lucas went to start his thing. “How do I know you’re an official tour guide and not just some roving know-it-all?” she teased. When he pointed out he didn’t have it yet, she said she would do her best to pretend and then told him to carry on. “Actually,” she interrupted him again, “What’s my character here? Am I a very receptive touring person? Am I… bored? Nosy? Touchy? Too loud? Like really obnoxious?”

“Just… be Maya Hart,” he requested.

“Oh yeah, her,” she smiled. “Lover of art, lover of tour guide, that one. I can do that. Okay, start. For real this time,” she beamed. He was smiling, too, though he did his best to pull it together so he could get started on his tour.

So, he started, first welcoming her to the museum and asking her if she’d been here before. It had once again tested her ability to keep a straight face for a moment before she’d taken to playing the part, like he _wasn’t_ her boyfriend and instead some random person who didn’t know her so well as he did. He led her into the first exhibit. They had seen this one before, of course, the main, permanent exhibit, but it didn’t stop her from listening to him as he said his part, as he’d learned it. Maya didn’t think there was much of their free time since he’d gotten the job where she hadn’t found him bent over his own guide, taking it all in. She had helped him any time she could. Even her mother had pitched in, sharing in her own expertise, as she said, to help him retain it all.

Now, finally, seeing him put it all into practice, it didn’t take long for her to lose sight of the amusement of seeing him be a tour guide and just get caught up in all he was telling her, showing her. She threw in the occasional question, testing his additional knowledge, and he was right on target where he could, gracious when he had no answer.

By the time they reached the end of the tour, and he thanked her for visiting them, inviting her to come again, she couldn’t contain herself anymore and she hugged him, congratulating him for getting through it. He hugged her back, and she could feel the relief in him, that he’d actually gotten through it.

“I’ll have to keep practicing, so I don’t forget.”

“After a few of these you’ll have it locked in so deep you’ll be able to recite it in your sleep,” she promised him. “I’m so proud of you,” she added, stretching up on her toes and pushing on his shoulders so she might press a kiss to his forehead, like some seal of her pride.

“Coming from you, it means a lot,” he nodded, still holding her near.

“So, is this part of your tour etiquette, too?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Only in the girlfriend package,” he informed her, and she laughed. “Now, I think it’s time I drive you to the diner, yeah?” She sighed, clinging to him like she didn’t want to let go.

“Look at us, always working, like responsible, industrious people… What happened to us?”

“Growth?” he shrugged, and she grumbled.

“Okay, let’s go then. You got me breakfast, only fair I get you lunch.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	41. Their Work to Catch Up

There had been times, after they’d moved to Texas, where it felt to Maya as though she had fallen out of touch with New York, with her old life, most of all with her friends, her people. That had been less of a thing once Farkle and Smackle had started coming down to Austin over the summer, the connections feeling stronger again. Even when they didn’t get to talk as much, it still would feel like there was enough of a reason, just life being life, all of them being busy with school, and work, and everything in between. It was never about not wanting to make time for each other. No matter what, they always had each other.

Once a week at least they would video chat, together or apart. Maya would talk with Smackle about band things, about the quiz team to the both of them, Lucas would pass on any questions and well wishes his mother might have had for Farkle… These days however the subject in the spotlight would inevitably turn out to be the trip they were planning, or the efforts they were making in preparation of this.

After getting home on Friday with Riley in tow, Maya had gone and sat in wait after letting Farkle know she was there and ready for his call. Moments later, she was connected into an existing call between Farkle and Smackle, who were at their respective homes.

Farkle showed the girls his hands, counting off no fewer than five band-aids over fingers and palms, to cover the papercuts which he’d received while working at the job he’d gotten, in the mailroom of his father’s office. He was so annoyed at each of those little cuts, which he recounted to them in deep details, and his friends over in Texas had trouble keeping their chuckles to themselves.

“He has fragile skin,” Smackle defended, much as Farkle didn’t seem to enjoy the claim, going by the way he frowned back down to his hands.

“So, how’s it going at your job, Isadora?” Maya cut in, to divert the subject.

“I fill coffee cups, put muffins and stuff on plates, and bring them to people, they give me money, I take away the empty dishes, it’s easy,” she shrugged. Maya and Riley shared a look as though to say ‘so much for new subjects’ before pushing onward, knowing it was only a matter of teasing out more words. Farkle was right there along with them.

“We’ve been trying to figure out more efficient stacking,” he told the girls, “To save time, serve more people.”

“There have been a lot of errors,” Smackle reported. “Some broken dishes… at home, not at the coffee shop, I wasn’t going to pay for those.”

“Your parents are okay with that sacrifice?” Maya asked with a laugh.

“They were part of their gifts back when they got married, from my aunt and uncle, they’ve been in their boxes and gathering dust all those years. My aunt has really weird tastes,” Smackle shrugged. “So yeah, they’re fine with it.”

“Well that’s good…” Riley replied, blinking awkwardly. “If you need more, there’s a box of stuff from my grandparents my mom never uses…”

“Which grandparents?” Maya turned to her, and Riley went bug-eyed.

“I’ve said too much…”

Maya always did feel these calls had a special sort of quality when it was the four of them, the New York chapter of their great big group of friends, whether they still lived there or not. Even if it had been over two to three years for either Riley or Maya and they had since settled so well into their new lives in Texas… And even if it couldn’t be helped that they would feel a certain disconnect from who they had once been, the lives they’d had back there… Sometimes all it would take would be to talk to Farkle or Smackle again, and suddenly that part of their hearts that pumped with the blood of their New Yorker origins seemed to rise into focus again. Much as they could try and explain that to the rest of their friends, they really wouldn’t understand, not like these two would.

“You guys should come up over Christmas,” Farkle suggested out of the blue, and here the two halves of their lives seemed to reassert themselves. They were both of them their own things, and both of them so important on their own. And as much as they would know their lives existed as a whole, too, there would be those times where they would see the division, the border between then and now, and see how they stood right on it, like they were trailing along a tightrope.

Maya had spent her last three holidays here in Austin, and they were all of them so wonderful and magical in their own rights, but they also felt like they all built one upon the next, and the thought of not being there, with her friends, with Lucas, just as they’d been, felt so wrong. But then Christmas in New York… In this very moment it felt like she couldn’t possibly want anything else, especially getting to spend it with Farkle and Smackle, and Riley, too… It wasn’t as though they could naturally expect that they would all spend all their Christmases the exact same way, right? And even if they didn’t get to spend this one, the day of it, with their friends, well… Last August’s Christmas dinner with her friends had certainly shown that it was possible to find that spirit if they wanted it enough, yeah?

Nothing was decided as of yet, but both Maya and Riley agreed it could be worth running the idea by their families. Riley would definitely have liked the idea of getting to spend Christmas with her grandparents in Philadelphia, too…

TO BE CONTINUED


	42. Their Work to Advance

The first day of his working as a tour guide at the museum, Lucas was visited by a few different groups which could only have been there to see him at work. His family had come along in the morning, then Maya’s parents, along with Riley’s, and Zay’s, and Dylan’s and Asher’s. And then in the afternoon, his friends had come for a tour, right at the end of the day. Maya had been right there at the front, leading the others and all the while keeping his eye as though to say ‘go on, dazzle us, guide boy,’ and he smiled quietly to himself before getting back in guide mode, as was no doubt the point of this exercise.

“Hey, how’s it going?” she stepped up, whispering.

“Good,” he promised in a whisper of his own. “Tell you later,” he nodded before returning to normal volume and addressing the group. He was pretty much ready to experience the sort of inescapable giggles, much as they would try to keep it together. He’d already gone through similar responses from those other groups of his that counted people he knew. If he had stuck it out with his mother there, looking like at any moment she would break the hush of the museum with a loud, proud proclamation that he was her son, he could get through the giggler gang at his heels.

The tour had gone well. They had only gone through one of the exhibits together, after which the others had gone to sit in the small café next to the gift shop, packing in around two neighboring tables. Much was said for a while about the experience of watching Lucas the Tour Guide, in full blazered glory. Maya had plenty to say on that look, none of it in her friends’ presence…

It felt good, being out here, all of them really feeling that they were holding up the promises they had made to themselves and everybody else, how they would work for what they sought to gain. Now, sure, they still had a long way to go, to maintain this momentum of theirs, but Maya knew this group, and she was sure of one thing, sure that they would stay the course, sure that this was them jumping into the long haul.

She was drawn back out of her thoughts when she heard a word slip through… Halloween… It was coming up very soon, and though they didn’t have a haunted house to work on that year, they were just as excited for it, and none more than Maya and Lucas would be.

Those memories were still so close to them, so vivid, it seemed impossible that almost a year had gone by since that day, that night at the haunted house, where they had almost kissed, not for the first time, no, but for a near repeat that signalled a new chapter in their story, not just a chapter but a whole separate book, too. That signalling wouldn’t be called on until the next morning, but even so, it _had_ happened, on Halloween, the ghost and the vampire sat exhausted on the ground, and then that moment… hearts all in a tremor, looking into the other’s eyes, and almost… almost…

Halloween coming would then mean November just around the corner, and that meant the close of their first year as boyfriend and girlfriend. She couldn’t have said how it would make her feel to sit here and think about it all, how it would warm her like an embrace. A first anniversary…it felt like a celebration, and it would be, a big one. There had been a few times in recent days and weeks where she could swear she’d seen a look in his eyes like he was planning something already, in secret. Well, she had some plans of her own, too. He might have November 1st all set in his mind, but then that left October 31st well in her hands, didn’t it? Oh, she was going to rise to the occasion, she would.

In time, some of them had to head off, but there would still be a few of them there, sitting outside the museum and discussing Halloween costumes, when Lucas emerged, his first day done. The small group in wait, Maya, Nadine, Zay, and Asher, greeted his arrival with mad applause, which pulled a surprised grin from him as he came to sit with them, shoulder to shoulder with Maya, who he met with a kiss to the side of the head just as she got her arms around his arm.

“You guys didn’t have to wait around for me,” he assured them, though it was plain in his eyes he was glad for it.

“Sure, we did, it’s kind of our thing,” Nadine declared with a smile.

“We were trying to decide what we’ll be for Halloween, for Julianne’s party,” Zay told him.

“I still say we do a group costume,” Asher added.

“There’s so many of us though,” Nadine pointed out.

“I’m sure we could think of something though,” Lucas put in with a nod and Asher bowed his head at the support. “And if not this year, then there’s still next year.” It would still need some thinking, if they expected to not only find something that worked but also got it all ready in time for the party.

“How’s it going at the theater?” Maya asked Zay as the group started off from the museum. She was working at the diner that evening, same as Nadine and Asher, trading off for the afternoon they’d spent at the museum, while Zay, along with Joey, would be working at the theater, thanks to Katy Hart.

“Pretty good, can’t complain,” he reported. His job kept him out front, with theater goers. Joey’s job kept him behind the scenes, and really, they could see how it was exactly where he wanted to be, where he belonged. He was happy with what he got to do there, got to see and learn, all his friends had to do was hear him talk about it all. “Tonight’s supposed to be a packed house, that’ll be chaos…”

“Well come on, I’ll get you a milkshake, liquid courage,” Nadine gave his hand a squeeze, smiling.

Reaching the diner, they’d taken to a booth, the five of them, until Maya, Nadine and Asher needed to clock in. Eventually Zay had left – milkshake consumed – to get to the theater, and Lucas had gone with him. The other three had gotten to work, falling into the steady rhythm of the diner. The hours progressing, they came to the lull that came with the late hours, where they hardly ever had more than five customers at a time, sometimes had none at all, which would give way to cleaning and stocking, if not just standing about and talking.

Maya had taken out her sketchbook at some point, the question of Halloween and costumes still working through her mind. Leaning against the counter, she’d tried to see if some idea might come about, just working with her friends’ faces, their personalities, as though it would draw out the solution, the perfect group costume for them. The hard part was coming up with something that would hold all nine of them, maybe ten… It felt sort of right to think of Scott as part of them, with the quiz team, and then the Riley of it all…

When the idea came, it was sort of a joke to herself, and she’d just smirked as she drew the figure, never thinking much of it. Only bit by bit, the one figure had led to her adding a second, and a third, and on and on, until she saw she already had six of them, and if she really thought about it for a moment… she knew exactly what to do with the rest.

“What are you doing?” Nadine popped up on the other side of the counter, just as Maya snapped the sketchbook shut.

“Just thinking,” she shrugged innocently. Nadine squared her with a suspicious look, but she left it alone. Asher, seeing this from across the diner, looked back at her and shrugged his shoulders as though to ask ‘what’s up?’ Maya waved him over, the great instigator of the group costume idea, then opened the book back to the page she’d just completed. When he saw what she’d done, he burst out laughing, and Maya tapped his arm so he would stop, holding a finger to her lips so he wouldn’t draw Nadine back. “Secret,” she whispered. “What do you think?”

“I think if everyone likes it, then it’s perfect. I also think you couldn’t have cast them any better…”

“Monday morning, at the bench,” Maya declared, and he nodded. Then they’d see whether the group was on board for the costumes…

TO BE CONTINUED


	43. Their Celebration of Mischief

The days leading up to Julianne Shelby’s Halloween party had been a rush of school, and quiz team, and work, and friends, and life, and… costumes. As promised, Maya had unveiled her master plan to all her friends at school the Monday after she’d come up with it. The reactions had been both varied and somewhat indicative that she had aimed true in her casting.

It quickly became public knowledge that she had something to show them, it seemed, as each arrival at the bench included a request to find out what she had come up with. But she made them wait, each one, until all of them were there, and that included…

“Hey, Scott!” she called when she spotted him coming up toward the building. He stopped, turned and came their way when she waved him over. “Wanna be in our group costume for your sister’s party?” She didn’t look to her side, though again she could feel Riley sort of sitting to attention here. She also saw the slightest stolen glance from the tall boy to her friend before replying to her.

“Uh, sure… I haven’t figured out what I’ll be anyway,” he explained, nodding in greeting to the group, to his other two co-members of Basket Cases. So he joined them, and with all of them sat or standing around, Maya pulled out her sketchbook and opened it until she could show the page – now colorized – which showed what she had in mind for all of them.

“Behold… Halloween,” she announced dramatically.

There was a lot of chuckling, and leaning in, pointing to this thing or that, especially as each one of them found their counterpart in the drawing and the role they had been given. There was the occasional contesting, though in no time it would be turned around. The one, as had been predicted, who gave the most uncertainty, was Nadine.

“Why am I Grumpy? I’m not grumpy, am I?”

“Well…” Zay turned to his girlfriend, at once supportive and reasoning, “Sometimes… And really, you’re the best at it…” he kissed her cheek as she gave a frown. “See? Perfect?” That was enough to get her laughing, and so with some reluctance she was on board.

It had started with Dylan, honestly. She’d started drawing him, and he’d come up very much… Dopey. He’d always been her favorite when she was growing up, and it just fit him so well. And then after him, it had been so easy to join Joey to the image… Oh, he was so Bashful… And his twin, Asher, with his information, with his ‘connections,’ had somehow morphed into Doc. From there, it seemed to her impossible to cast Lucas as one of the others, and really there was no reason to, because once she thought about it, he could only ever be the Huntsman, and that was what she’d drawn him as. That was when she’d known this had potential to work, in number at least. At that point, she still needed to see if they would all agree to it.

Riley had been a conundrum. On the one hand, she had the look, had the sweetness and all to be Snow White herself, but then when she’d started drawing her, started picturing her little face, she knew she had it all wrong, because really, who else would better fill the mantle of Happy? This left her with the role to fill, and as soon as she’d cast Riley elsewhere, the solution presented itself easily. If any one of them looked straight out of some fairy tale, it was Rebecca, and so she had drawn her as Snow White.

Zay she had drawn, with memories of many an exaggerated face, as Sneezy, which left her two of the seven, and three of them still to cast. It might have seemed like Nadine as Grumpy would have been a last minute ‘it was the only one left’ sort of decision, when it was more of a ‘I’ve seen your face when you’re annoyed’ decision, and so that was easily settled. And then there was Scott, their growing boy, who now became a little Sleepy…

And finally, there was her. Seven dwarfs, check. Snow White, check. Huntsman, check. Who was left? Oh… but the witch, of course. Who else was she going to be?

They had all been working to get their costumes ready. They weren’t merely going to copy some cartoon, no, they would come up with their own thing. The drawing had merely been a proof of concept. Now, in the days that had followed, each one had had their input on their own costume, and Maya had diligently sketched each one, individually, and the construction of those costumes began, accessories and all. They had yet to all be in the same room, all done up, but Maya had seen them, little by little, and oh she was so glad Asher had suggested the group thing. They all looked silly, wonderfully so, and it would be a memory for all of them to share, for years and years, she just knew it would.

Halloween wasn’t just going to be those costumes though, of course. As the days had passed, both she and Lucas had been so happy together, knowing what was coming. If November 1st was their anniversary, then Maya had declared October 31st their pre-anniversary, or spookversary even… They had always loved Halloween, and ever since the year before, they had so many more reasons to love it even more, and to continue loving it, for what it had brought them, each year they closed together. Maybe next year they would be at this again, although just what other option they would have, with their group of ten, she couldn’t say yet. They had plenty of time for that one…

TO BE CONTINUED


	44. Their Celebration of Halloween

When the night of the party had finally arrived, ‘The Moment,’ as Maya had been so dramatically referring to it in her mind, couldn’t come fast enough. That moment was of course the point where all ten of them, dressed up and done up as their assigned characters, would find themselves in the same place together, thus going from random, individual costumes, to one unified group costume consisting of ten members. Soon she sat there waiting, one wicked little witch waiting for her flock, as they were set to depart together from her house.

The first to show had been Rebecca, their resplendent Snow White, though Maya greeted her – of course – as her character must. Rebecca had responded in style, and the girls had burst out laughing. Lucas had come next, striding down the street in full Huntsman mode as well. Maya had welcomed him, maybe breaking character just the slightest bit, though no one would fault her for it. Now all they needed was the band of seven, and in a fashion that could not have been more perfect, not only had they all come at once, but they had walked up to her house in single file, humming along. The trio standing in wait had applauded their friends in awe and amusement. It turned out they had met each other as they walked on their way, and at that point there really was no other way to make their approach, was there?

Before they could take off for the party, Katy and Shawn had come from the house, taking in the whole lot of them in their costumes. Katy was simply unable to keep a straight face, while Shawn had gone back into the house and retrieved his camera, which had led to an impromptu photoshoot, all of them embracing their roles and creating images that would no doubt be just as amusing as the costumes themselves once they got to see them. For now, they were due at the Shelby party.

The guest list for Julianne Shelby’s Halloween party started off, as it was bound to, with the basketball teams… former teams, so long as things hadn’t been sorted out on that front, but still… From there, it had expanded to include this one’s friends, and that one’s friends, and then in time it turned into a fair chunk of the student body of their school slowly but surely filling up the space inside that house. The costumes were as varied as they could be, in subject, in quality… Even so, they could go in with the certainty that even if some of them might have come in pairs and trios, quartets at the most, there was no unified costume as vast as theirs, and their arrival did not go unnoticed.

“So that makes more sense,” was Julianne’s greeting to her little brother as she came upon Scott, whose mode of ‘Sleepy’-ness was to go around with his eyes just about closed, every so often leaning to one of the other six in his band of seven, which would cause them to express their own traits, from Nadine’s Grumpy pulling away, to Zay’s Sneezy letting out a sneeze like it had been startled out of him, to Riley’s Happy who was… well, really, really happy as well as accommodating to the gesture.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Scott asked his sister, keeping to character.

“I just wasn’t sure what you were supposed to be going as for a while,” Julianne shrugged, which could only leave him – and the others – wondering just what she’d had in mind.

After having been accosted by a few more of their friends, all of them sounding like they loved the costumes, the question arose where they wondered whether they were required to stay all of them together all through the party, to maintain the collective image, or if they could splinter off, mix and mingle and find each other again as they felt. Every one of them had other friends here and there, and more coming into the house, and it was only natural for them to want to go and talk with them without having all the others trailing behind, though they all wanted to keep up the full effect of the ten of them together, too. Maya, for her part, also had the pre-anniversary situation to keep in mind.

“Okay, let’s just spread out and regroup in a bit, we’re only going to waste time not making up our minds,” Nadine declared, pushing up the Grump factor, which in this case was plenty effective. So off they went, dwarves here, dwarves there, here a princess, there a witch and a huntsman.

“Hey, look, apples,” Maya tugged at Lucas’ arm as they passed into the kitchen. The wicked glimmer in her eye made it a wonder she hadn’t come packing a few of those in her pockets. “Wanna play ‘how many people can I make faint into a sweet, sweet enchanted sleep?’” she asked him, then, off his look, “ _Pretend_ sweet, sweet enchanted sleep. Come oooon, Huntsy, you know you’re curious,” she dared him. He hesitated, but then looked at the basket on the counter, and they quickly established held a baker’s dozen of apples, which could not have been a better number as far as she was concerned.

“Five…” he finally spoke, and she fixed him with a surprised look.

“Is that all? Such small faith in my abilities. Well…” she snatched up the basket.

“Maya…” he followed her as she started back out of the kitchen.

“Who’s that?” she asked, twisting on the witch voice, fixing him with a daring gaze. “Come with me, young one…”

“I’m older than you,” he barely cut in before she was going on.

“I’ll show you the power of my poisoned apples…” she stopped, then turned back toward the kitchen. “After I wash them.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	45. Their Celebration of a Near Kiss

The dark cloaked, bent backed little witch weaved her way through the Shelby house, her basket of apples under her arm. She had just spent the last few minutes at the kitchen sink, washing and shining each of the thirteen with the assistance of her valiant Huntsman, much to the curiosity and amusement of others in the kitchen. With the brief setback accomplished, the basket had been picked up and the prowl had begun. She had vowed that she would find willing participants to her little game for each of those apples, and though he had not expressed as much, Lucas the Huntsman would follow, trusting in her abilities.

“Maya, hey!” Julianne greeted her with a laugh, taking in her costume. “You have…” she started, then stopped when the witch presented her with an apple.

“Here, have an apple, dear. A beauty like you deserves a jewel such as this. Go on, have a bite,” she spoke in her frail little voice, challenging both Lucas and Julianne’s abilities to keep a straight face. The challenge here would be to see if Julianne not only took the fruit, but took a bite, and then…

“Thank you… stranger… I will totally take that and eat it, because what could possibly go wrong?” Julianne smirked, playing like she debated it for all of a second before shrugging and taking a solid bite, chewing for a second or two before teetering on the spot and sitting/fainting on the ground. The victorious witch turned to her Huntsy with a raised chin. That was one done.

“You alright?” Maya asked Julianne with a laugh. The girl on the ground gave a thumbs up. “Enjoy the rest of that, yeah?” She may have been an evil witch, but she was not wasteful.

The next little while was spent repeating this exercise with other attendees of the Halloween party, none of their group, of course, but then they had plenty of candidates either way. It didn’t mean every single person she approached took the bait, some dismissed her at once, getting no apple but a major case of stink eye that could well have been the thing to get them knocked to the ground.

But the refusals were few and far in between, because she did have other successes, and all of them were memorable. Some were a bit uncertain how to perform their fall, not wanting to injure themselves, or others, or to break anything, which made for very stilted faintings. Then on the flip side, you had those who just committed, who threw themselves into the performance, drawing the attention of others in the vicinity. One by one, the apples found their preys, and as they would move on to find their next target, the witch and the huntsman could see previous fainters munching on their apples, which was the oddest little sight at the crowded Halloween party.

“One left…” Maya turned to Lucas. “Twelve down, literally. So, who will make unlucky thirteen?”

“Well… I mean…” he tilted his head to where they could see Snow White Rebecca leading Bashful Joey in a dance amidst all the other dancers there in the cleared space of the Shelby living room.

“Good point,” she straightened up, ditching the basket, brandishing her last apple, then turning to him. “Let’s get in there, Huntsy.”

So, off they went dancing, losing themselves in the music and one another for a while before Maya spotted their target moving off with her bashful boyfriend and sought to follow, only to be stopped by Lucas, who kept her close.

“But…” she pointed to Rebecca, the apple in her hand. He took it from her, and he took a bite at once, surprising her. He swallowed the bite with a shrug.

“Poisoned apples have nothing on you for getting me weak in the knees,” he declared, and the evil witch’s cheeks turned apple red.

“Well in that case I better hold on good, wouldn’t want you getting hurt, would I?” she shrugged happily, and he nodded in agreement, their dance resumed, their challenge met and the final apple shared between the two of them. Neither of them could say if they even remembered there was anyone else around them anymore.

One year ago that night, after what felt like almost a year of private conflict, one unprepared to jump in, the other keeping to patience no matter what, Halloween had been the thing to get them right on the cusp, a near kiss that willed them to be honest with themselves, and with one another. And for that, they were able to be here, a year later, more in love than ever.

“Did you have those apples there on purpose?” he asked after they’d moved off the dance floor. The thought had been working at the back of his mind all along as they’d ‘fainted’ a dozen of their friends and classmates. The presence of the basket, just there at the ready, Julianne’s reaction to it, not batting an eye at all those apples being relegated to witchy business… “Those were _your_ apples, weren’t they?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she beamed, as they came to find Snow White had herded her seven together again. It was still the funniest thing for them to see.

“Hey, easy there, witch,” Sneezy Zay – Sneezay, as he had christened himself – stood and barred the approach toward their multicolor-haired princess. “Let’s see those hands, gotta check for apples.”

“Yeah, no worries, the last one’s gone,” Maya promised. Zay looked to the other six, who approved, and then he stepped aside with a smile, letting the Witch and the Huntsman return to sit among them, so they could share in their own tales of this night’s Halloween.

TO BE CONTINUED


	46. Their Celebration of a Choice

Maya awoke on the morning of November 1st, a smile lingering on her face from a dream she wished wouldn’t fade away so fast. But now that she _was_ awake, and knowing what day it was… It was like one of those days when you woke up, and all was quiet, and the air felt light and calming, and it left you with the overwhelming feeling that you were about to have a great day. And lying here, all she had to do was turn her head up, and she could see the poster above her bed, the one he gave her, and everything was wonderful… One year, him and her…

Of course, this being their anniversary did not mean they were exempt from their daily duties, primarily school. Lucas would be coming to pick her up, as he did every morning, and thinking that he might have something special cooked up for this one morning did sort of ramp up her anticipation for his arrival. They had had their first date only several days after that one morning, but this day, the first of November, that was their anniversary, that was when they’d started. And the walk to Riley’s, before getting on to school, that was the moment, precisely so, and she knew he’d be thinking about that as much as she did. This year they would be driving, not walking, but still…

Oh, how she remembered that morning one year ago. So much confusion still in her head, this battle she’d been fighting with her own mind, whether to take this chance or to remain cautious, to not let herself risk the possibility that she could get her heart broken. She still thought about it, sometimes, only it never had the same significance as it had done back then. Before they’d gotten together, her fear was born out of all the things she hadn’t lived, the things she had cooked up in her mind like many others in her situation might have done. She’d imagined the beauty and the love that she could get and held it against the one that she’d lost, which was part of her ever since she and her mother had been left behind by her father. In Lucas, in this beautiful Huckleberry of a boy she could see so much of what she could get, but it was also the most terrifying thing to imagine, to see herself getting it and knowing what losing it could do to her.

But she’d taken that chance, and she’d let him in, and of the greatest hits of her life, the choices she was happiest to have made, right up there with climbing into Riley Matthews’ window and the deal she’d made with Nadine Zhu for her to remain on the basketball team, this one had opened its own special doors, just as the others had done. The doors of friendship here, of academia there… of love, with him. She could never have understood what it really felt to have that, back when she feared so much to lose him when she hadn’t even had him to lose yet. Now she did, now she knew, and now her inner fears were something else.

She never wanted to think that there could ever be a time where she wouldn’t feel about him the way she did now, and really it didn’t seem possible to her that she would. But again, again… it wasn’t as though she didn’t understand that this was something that would happen to people, and that it could ever be him and her, now _that_ was terrifying. No. No, it wouldn’t be them, she refused to even let her mind wander down that road. She’d done this before, for so many years, refusing to hope, digging her heels in doubt and denial. That wasn’t her anymore, and she wasn’t going to let herself do that again.

If she ever had that one nagging dark cloud trying to slide its way into her skies now and then, today wasn’t one of those, not one bit. Today was pure blue skies with calm white clouds like bits of fluff dotting the horizon… possibly heart shaped…

So up and out of bed she scrambled, startling the pups and sending them barking and whimpering. They were met with petting and cuddles of reassurance, and the breadth of her joy on that morning must have found them, too, keeping them on her trail as she went about getting ready, wagging their tails and staring at her with curiosity. Her parents may or may not have been awake, she couldn’t say and she didn’t check. All she could think about was being ready before Lucas arrived.

Staring into her closet on those days where it seemed most important to make an impression, it always felt like everything melted together and she could see nothing that would draw her eye until she had been staring and searching for a good twenty minutes, but not today. As soon as she opened the doors to her closet, her eyes fell on one dress and she knew there’d be no need to search any further. Not quite a year ago she had worn this dress on the night of their first proper date. It had ended up a mess after the torrential rain and all the running around, but here it was, pristine again, and she had to wear it today.

So far, so good, she would think, right up until she would go about trying to rein in her hair and find it was having one of those mind-of-its-own days. She hadn’t cut it for so long, except to trim the ends, not since before they’d moved here three years before. It had been inching further and further down her back, probably would surpass it if pulled to its full, straight length, so this was hardly a new problem, and neither was the solution.

“Mom!” she called out.

TO BE CONTINUED


	47. Their Celebration of a Realization

A year ago, he had been sort of weary from disturbed sleep when he woke up on the morning of November 1st. He had the memory of the night before playing at his head, the memory of the kiss… the near kiss, him and Maya, before they’d collectively stepped back. Back then he had all those memories, those questions, that confusion, unaware that in a matter of so little time, all would change. In no time at all, they would have that kiss, they would have their start… In no time at all, she would become his girlfriend and he would become her boyfriend, and this great little year of theirs would begin.

A year ago, he had awakened with the dust of that shortened sleep in his eyes, but today he awoke with the swell of love in his heart, and the work of a full night’s restful sleep, filled with dreams of him and her. Today he didn’t worry about what it would be like to come to her door and see her as he’d done the year before, when he could only wonder what the near kiss would have done to them; today, oh… he couldn’t wait to get to her.

They wouldn’t have their anniversary date until that weekend, of course. It may have been a very important date to them, but well… school night. They’d been allowed to make the odd exception here and there, allowances for good behavior or something, but he didn’t want them to be on a clock for this, and neither did Maya, he knew. The planning of their ‘capital D Dates’ would pass from one to the other, but this one was in his camp, and he knew that even though the Date wouldn’t be for a couple days, it wouldn’t mean he was about to let this day sit uncelebrated. This was the day of realization after all.

There were times where having a group of friends as large and tightly knit as theirs could be more of an advantage than anyone could really expect. How many times had they called on that extended power, all of them? He could count off anything from Zay and Nadine and _their_ first anniversary, to everything with the basketball teams, to all the birthdays, the holidays… And now today, today… Here was the girl he loved, here was a year between them, and here he was, wanting to let her know how happy he was for having her in his life, her and any others who should bear witness, too. She knew, of course, knew about the love, the happiness, from his words, from his eyes, from his touch, so then today wasn’t so much about telling as it was about showing, about remembering past memories and making new ones.

So out of bed he went on that morning of the 1st of November, so rested he felt as though he could burst from energy. And when his mother and father had found him soon after in the kitchen, awakened by his activities, they looked at him, their boy turned near on spritely. His mother and father almost didn’t recognize him and couldn’t get enough of it, smirking and smiling and wondering what he was up to. He was dressed already, and making quick work of his breakfast, so much so they would beg him to slow down so he wouldn’t choke. He needed to stop off somewhere before making it to Maya’s house, and he wasn’t about to miss his window of opportunity.

“Uh, Dad?” he turned to the man, after he’d rushed off to grab his bag and his keys, only to stop and walk back to the kitchen.

All of three minutes later, they were in his car, Friar and son, Lucas in the passenger seat and his father at the wheel. He hadn’t intended to have him there, but he’d gone to leave and he’d been taken with this thought that, with how he was feeling right then, he might not have trusted himself at the wheel, so this would be an acceptable concession. At least he could trust that his father wouldn’t use this time with the two of them alone in the car to talk his ear off about his relationship with his girlfriend. His father left him to his thoughts, to his plans.

He wondered for a bit about what she was doing in that moment. Was she just as jittery as he was? Was she already ready, waiting for him? He didn’t even have to close his eyes and he could see her sitting up there in front of her house, the morning sun hitting her head and turning it to gold, her face just as bright, her eyes the windows into the whole of her being. He knew the privilege he held in knowing her as deeply as he did, better than most people in the world. He was still leaning, every day… he never wanted to stop learning about her.

The nearer they got to her house, he felt he only got more anxious to arrive. He would look in the mirror, ensuring that his hair was in its place, that his clothes were clean, and straight. When he dipped his head to get a smell under his arms, his father finally spoke up.

“Would you like to go the rest of the way on your own from here?” He looked around and saw they had just turned on to her street.

“What about you?” Lucas asked.

“Don’t worry about me, I think I can find my way back,” his father promised with a chuckle. “I think you’ve got this from here, yeah? Breathing, you’re doing that, right?” Lucas nodded. “Exhaling?” his father gestured, and Lucas breathed out. “Well…” his father slowly nodded, like he was trying not to laugh at him. “Just keep doing that,” he tapped him on the shoulder before getting out of the car. Lucas climbed from the passenger’s seat to the driver’s, watching his father walk off for a moment before facing forward again. Breathing, exhaling, that was easy…

TO BE CONTINUED


	48. Their Celebration of a Year

By the time he was set to go up to the door, Lucas stopped for a beat, like the memory of how he still had to go to school after all this was only now coming to him, and he didn’t know how he was ever going to make it through if this was only early morning still and he was this caught up in the anniversary vibe of it all. For sure, he was never ever going to give either of his parents a hard time for how goofy they could get on _their_ anniversaries…

“Morning,” Shawn Hunter greeted him at the door, and Lucas must have worn his surprise clear on his face, to find him there and not the girl he’d come to seek, because her father gave a nod and stepped aside to let him in. “She’ll be right out, there was just a… uh… hair mishap,” Shawn gestured at his head. Silence fell in between them for a few seconds. The days where Lucas would get so nervous around the man were behind them now, mostly. As much as they’d found their way into getting along, he knew that Shawn always reserved the right to ‘turn dad’ on him. “So, big date this weekend, huh?” he asked after a beat. Lucas nodded, although a moment later he turned to Shawn again, wondering if he was trying to bring something more into the conversation. Before either of them could say or ask a thing, Katy emerged from Maya’s room, letting out a breath like she’d accomplished something difficult, and so they turned in wait.

When Maya stepped from her room, hair tamed and showing no sign of the frustration it had brought on to its owner a few moments before, it was halfway thanks to her mother’s assistance and halfway thanks to the look she found waiting on her boyfriend’s face. He saw the dress, remembered it well, and she knew she’d chosen right.

“I just need to grab breakfast,” she pointed to the kitchen, just as soon halting when Lucas shook his head.

“Got you covered,” he held up a bag he’d kept hidden behind his back and she gasped in surprise, smiling as she recognized the image on the bag.

“Pancakes from Ma Maggie’s?” she guessed, and he nodded.

“We stopped there on the way,” he explained.

“We?”

“Long story, I’ll tell you in the car.” Lucas paused, looking at her dress, white and blue and looking on her like it belonged to some red carpet movie star, or a royal… More than possibly overdressed for high school, but he wasn’t about to point that out. Right now, he was more concerned that, after last year’s rainy fiasco, this year it might suffer a stickier fate. “Maybe I should have brought more napkins…”

Before her breakfast could get cold, Maya had grabbed her bag, wished parents and dogs alike a good day, and she’d gone with Lucas out of the house and toward the car. They climbed into their seats, and in the quiet following the closing of the doors, they turned to one another, smiling. The memories of a year ago had been warming them from the moment they opened their eyes that day, but they had been alone at the time. Now they were together, remembering together, and it felt that much brighter, that much warmer. They leaned to one another, and though they never asked aloud if it was so, they both wondered if the other felt what they felt in that moment, like… For all the times they had kissed in the span of that one year, as they moved to share this one today, it took them back to the one that had started it all… well, the second one, on November 1st of the previous year. It took them back, and it made them feel like they were living it all over again. _Just making sure neither one of us thinks they need to step back this time…_ And when they pulled back to look into the other’s eyes, Lucas smiled, repeating what he’d told her then.

“Not going anywhere, not ever,” he promised, and she beamed, just as soon scrambling when she felt the bag slipping from her lap, and their four hands shot in to stabilize it at once. Maya laughed, and he did, too, and they settled back in their seats, her opening the bag to take out her pancakes, him starting the car to start them toward school. Riley had told them she would find her own way to school that day, letting them have their time to themselves.

“Had a dream about you last night,” she informed him as she worked to carefully cut into the pancakes, the scent taking her right back to the date where he’d taken her to Ma Maggie’s for the first time.

“Yeah?” he asked, and she nodded. “Had one about you, too,” he added.

“Was it good? Will I blush?” she asked, taking a bite of pancake and smiling to herself… They really were the best ones in town…

“Not like that, I don’t think,” he assured her, and she smirked, though it almost seemed to him like her face was betraying the fact that maybe she could have done with some blushing. “It was just you and me, and we were… I don’t know if we were flying, or floating, or sitting in the middle of the sky. But there was the world below us, spinning around, and then we just sort of fell, or jumped, and then we were in the ocean and we were swimming like it was nothing, like we could just breathe under there. We would just swim, and swim, and we never let each other go.”

“Wouldn’t want to get lost in the ocean, yeah,” she agreed, still just unable to stop smiling. “Was I a mermaid? Were you… a merman?” she asked with a curious laugh.

“No, just us,” he laughed back. “Just like this.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	49. Their Celebration of a Date

Saturday came along, the last two days having been an unbroken chain of sweet merriment for the both of them, until finally the day came for them to have their proper celebration of this year between them. Of course, it wasn’t as though the occasion hadn’t been noted already, from the Halloween party, to the morning of the 1st, the pancakes and fancy dress… When they’d gotten to school that day, Maya had found her locker contained two roses twined together, secreted in by Riley, if she had to guess. And they’d had lunch on their own, a practice for Saturday, as they’d call it. After the day was done, they had gone to his house, hanging out a while before she had to head home. He’d driven her back, leaving her with the promise of Saturday just nearly there.

Friday had been here and there, and now here they were. It seemed as though they had only just been in this state, dressing for an occasion, back on the anniversary itself, though here and now, there was most definitely an added level to it all. Lucas had gone to get his hair cut, had debated, it seemed, for much longer than anyone should have to pick from less than a handful choices. But he had told her he was aiming for ‘this would be _way_ too overdressed for school,’ which had made her laugh before taking his challenge with a handshake and a glimmer in her eye, and so the choice had needed to be made.

If Lucas thought picking through his clothes had been rough, he would have gone mad if he’d been in Maya’s position. She had known far ahead of time she wanted to treat this day specially, and she had set herself to finding just the right look, all components involved, maybe since before the school year had started. She’d had it all figured out, finally, even as she was putting together her costume for Halloween. And then, when they’d gone back to his house after school on Thursday, Lucas had given her a present.

The necklace hung from her neck now, unaware, like the boy who’d bought and gifted it, of the mad dash it had initiated. She had to wear it for the Date, she had to, but it just didn’t feel as though it fit with the rest of the look she’d assembled, and so before she knew it, she was rethinking everything. The hero of the story here had been Shawn Hunter, her father seeing to it that the store where she’d bought her dress would take it back, so she could then buy the one she now wore in its place, just the night before. And then she’d had to work this morning, which meant running back home as soon as she was done, so she could shower and get ready, because who wanted to smell like sweat and a diner at a time like this?

She’d been sure that she’d be cutting it down to the second when the doorbell rang, even with her mother aiding in her preparation, but finally here she was, all set and waiting for a certain tour guide… cowboy… Huckleberry… boyfriend guy…

He arrived only minutes later, and much as she’d tried not to sneak a peek, she’d spent those last minutes perched in her window, watching for the approach of his car. Instead, she saw him walking up the street, no car in sight, not that she noticed its absence right away. She was somewhat distracted by the sight of him, looking without a doubt like he’d followed his own challenge, and not for the first time in the time she’d known him, she could say he had made her heart skip a beat, dizzying her into a smile before moving out of his line of sight. Just because she’d seen him early didn’t mean she’d let him do the same. She wanted to see the look on his face from up close, and she wanted to send _his_ heart looping loops on a rollercoaster.

Her parents weren’t there, having left just ten minutes before to go and spend the evening at the Matthews’, and so when Lucas rang the bell, she was there to open the door and witness his reaction all on her own.

A year ago, on their first Date, after the chaos of rain and running had been over and she’d slipped into a dry change of clothes, he had told her how he was ready for so many more outings with her, in ‘fancy dresses or jeans and a t-shirt,’ and she knew he meant it. All she had to do was recall the way he would look at her, no matter what she wore. It wasn’t going to change the way he felt for her… but it would certainly take him by surprise, and giving him those new surprises, that was always what she aimed to do. Whether she would have presented herself with the look she had assembled over several weeks, or the one she’d been left scrambling to create in just about two days, he would have been as he was now, and it relieved her of whatever silly nervousness she’d put herself through in order to get to this moment.

Lucas had found her, standing there in the silvery embroidered tulle dress, which made the pendant at her neck stand out and match, her hair pulled into a braid which looked somewhat similar to how she’d had it the year before, this time left to be draped over her shoulder rather than pinned around her head… If he had to put words to the effect the whole look had on him at first sight, he might have called her angel, called her magic, called her… heart.

“Hi,” he smiled.

“You’re early,” she declared, smiling back.

“Oh… Do you want me to come back later?” he pointed back up the street, moving as though to leave, only to find his arm claimed by her hand on the fly.

“Don’t you even,” she laughed, and he caught her up with a kiss. “Hey…”

Taking up her jacket and her bag, they were off, walking at ease down the street. When she asked where his car was, he said he’d decided to leave it behind. He wanted to enjoy every minute with her, and at the wheel he couldn’t have that, not the same, so they would leave their transports at the mercy of the good bus drivers of Austin for the night. Maya was all too pleased to go along on this reasoning. Buses had sort of had a good place in their relationship, hadn’t they, even back when they had been only friends still, even the best of those.

“Did I ever show you the drawing I did once? After my, uh… that time with Joey?” she asked as they stood in wait at the bus stop. He stopped to think for a few seconds, then shook his head. “I didn’t? Really?” Again, he shook his head. “Okay, come here,” she took his hand and gave his arm a yank, forcing him to start to run so he would get to keep that arm connected to his body.

“What are you doing? We’ll miss the bus!”

“There will be other buses, this is important, now hurry up already, I know you can run faster than this, you have those long legs and I don’t, so what’s your excuse?” she urged him on, and it worked. They ran all the way back to her house, went on in, and Maya released his arm at last, scurrying into her room. Lucas followed, stopping just at the door to find her crouched next to her bed, rising again a moment later with a familiar sketchbook in hand.

“Hey, I gave you that,” he pointed.

“Yeah, you did,” she laughed, pulling it open at random before flipping through the pages until she found the one she was looking for. “Here,” she went to sit at the window and he followed, sitting next to her. The only other person she’d ever shown it to was her mother… the morning of November 1st. “This might not make a whole lot of sense, it’s just…” she handed him the book, “It was the best way I knew how to put on paper the moment I knew… that I liked you, that I wanted to be with you. Took us a while to get there, but this… it changed everything for me, and I never wanted to forget. I can still remember, every time I see it.”

He was looking at it all, the little bits and things traced into the page, eyes moving from one to another, smiling, beaming. He didn’t have to say it, she could see it there on his face; he knew exactly what that page said, and of all the days she could have showed it to him, this might have been the best. It was her gift to him, and a most appreciated one.

TO BE CONTINUED


	50. Her Cheer For Holidays

Today was one of those days that started, it seemed, as most of the world – at least the world in her immediate vicinity – went on sleeping. They had to wake and rise, all of them, very early… They had a plane to catch, and as her mother continued to point out, with Christmas just days away, it would be chaos out there, so they’d better get a move on.

November had gone by, as had the start of December up to this point, like a lot of their lives did. School was school, which sort of made it sound like they didn’t have to work at it, and that would have been so wrong. For all of them, sophomore year was another turn on the wheel of difficulty, but then they would work at it just as they always did, and where they struggled, they had others around them to help them along. For Nadine, and Maya, for Asher and Rebecca, all of them with advanced placements, it was even more of that. But, as far as Maya could see herself concerned, it was no more the end of the world than it would have been before. Yes, it was more work, yes, it required a lot of discipline, but then she had prepared herself for this, and to no one’s surprise more than her own, she was thriving just fine.

Then they had the quiz team, and this was progressing along as well. They’d had a couple of meet ups now, with other teams from other schools in the area. The first had been… well, a bit of a disaster, honestly. But the second one had only been a hair disappointing, so that was good, wasn’t it? They’d gone in the first time, not really knowing how it would go, how they would respond to how it all went, once the introduction of another team, strangers, came into play. Now they knew, and now they could start finding their rhythm. They could work toward a win, somewhere in the future.

By now, much as they had adjusted to the situation as a whole, the absence of basketball was really getting to make itself felt among them. They should have been at it by now, and they weren’t. But maybe in a small, small way, it was just as well. With all their jobs, for their own benefits but at heart for their trip’s even more, there would have been no way they could swing doing both. For now, things were moving along on that front, and it did feel like they’d climbed past the base of their earnings, had reached the level of it feeling substantial, real.

Among her friends, all was well, everyone being just as they’d always been, ‘just getting taller,’ as Zay would put it. And with her and Lucas, things were so good, just as they’d been, that even if other things hadn’t been going so well, she would still have felt like optimism was a thing she could cling to. And now something wonderful was approaching.

Much as the thought of not getting to spend Christmas with _all_ of her friends had not been one Maya really looked forward to, she had been very happy when her parents had received the informal invitation Farkle and Smackle had passed on to her, to come and spend Christmas in New York, and decided it was a very good idea. And then Riley’s family had thought the same, and Maya had figured that would be it, and she would get to spend the holidays with her best friend from New York… in New York… and with more friends she missed constantly, too.

And then she discovered the two of them had not been the only ones summoned to Farkle and Smackle’s side in those last wintery days of December. Lucas and his parents would be making the trip as well. So, it would be ten of them making for New York on this early, so early morning.

And much as being up at this hour felt like an assault on all that was normal in the world when sleeping seemed much, much more reasonable of a thing to do, there was something to say for the power of excitement as a way of getting someone moving. She was dragging her feet just a bit, but she was moving, so that was something.

Waking up, getting up, and not hearing the telltale sounds that revealed the presence of Ghost, and Queen, and Tuck, it was the strangest thing. They had been left in the care of the Orlando family just the night before. Dylan had welcomed the growing dogs with so much giddiness, they might have thought the boy was just one more among the dogs. They certainly clambered about him like a brother, much to Maya’s amusement and reassurance. Dash, Lucas’ dog, for her part, had been left with Zay, who had received her like she was now his ward, and he would make it his life’s mission – for the next few days at least – to ensure she was safe and sound. They expected no less.

Her parents were up now, too. Maya watched from her room, the two of them standing in the kitchen. Her mother was walking around much the same as she did, longing for more sleep but powering through, with maybe just a hint less enthusiasm for that, still siding with more sleep. Her father saw her there, and he just wrapped his arms around her, beaming, and her mother leaned easily to him, like who needed pillows and blankets when you had a Shawn Hunter there. Maya could only smile, seeing them. Her little family was still so new in a lot of ways, but to her now it felt like she could hardly remember a time when it didn’t exist. That time was and would remain forevermore in the past.

TO BE CONTINUED


	51. Her Cheer For Travels

By the time they arrived at the airport, the three friends in the back of Mr. & Mrs. Friar’s car were sound asleep. Riley had her head to Maya’s shoulder, Maya had her head to Lucas’ shoulder, and Lucas had his head… well, to the window. Mrs. Friar’s jolly call announcing their arrival had woken them up all at once, scrambling upright so fast they’d almost gotten tangled and knocked heads. It was a wonder they’d managed to stay awake through the flight, but then once they sat there, with breakfast and a movie, they were finally remembering that this sleeplessness was to take them to New York, to their friends, and the excitement regained strength. For her part, Maya might have enjoyed the ‘old classic,’ the cross-country drive, but if the flight meant they got to spend more time with Farkle and Smackle, then the flight won.

They landed in New York four hours later, eagerly scanning the sea of faces until they could find the ones they wanted to find. Thankfully, by now, all of them had developed a habit of reuniting in airports, and while Riley’s sign back in Texas was a sparkly wonder, Farkle and Smackle’s small sign was just as effective, and when Lucas spotted it, he pointed it out to the girls, who took off running after them with the boy at their heels. Farkle was enveloped in an immediate Maya and Riley sandwich, while with Smackle, her friends and bandmates waited on the girl’s cue to put their arms around her, too. Maya looked on with smiles as Lucas and Farkle greeted one another, the brotherly pair of them.

As on their first trip to New York, they were all of them to be hosted by Mr. & Mrs. Minkus. It was hard not to remember how much that trip had shaken her, how she’d had to come face to face with the change in her perspective, brought on by the move. It had been an illusion shattered into a million pieces, into dust. It was all too easy for her to rely on the memory of what had happened at her mother’s old diner, her first kiss with Lucas, and pretend as though this was the only takeaway from that trip, but that wasn’t it, not at all, there was the rest of it, and now being back in New York, how could she not have the slightest concern that she would end up feeling this way again?

But then as they left the airport, and as they got into the car which would take them to the Minkus home, the blue skies over New York seemed to throw a light on everything, like the city wanted her to see it, wanted her to feel its brightness and its life, wanted her to remember how once upon a time it had been home. And maybe it wasn’t home anymore, but it would remain a part of her nonetheless. She was back, and she was okay. Riley would call it a Christmas miracle, born of her very own brand of December magic. Whatever it was called, Maya breathed in and smiled, looking back to her two best friends. They had arrived, and the holidays were fast upon them.

At the Minkus home, Farkle’s parents were quick to help settle their guests in, Maya’s parents here, Lucas’ there, Riley’s parents and Auggie here, and the rest of them there, with Farkle. Again, far from being left out, Smackle was joining them, too.

Once they were finally all settled in, the five young friends took Auggie along with them and headed into the city. They ended up playing in the snow at a park, a snowball fight rising up, Auggie teaming up with Lucas and Farkle, versus Maya, Riley, and Smackle. Maya knew in no time she’d be capturing it all in her sketchbook. Auggie, going wild and shouting like a tiny warrior, Farkle, standing there for the longest time with a snowball in hand, debating where to throw, and Lucas the top scorer at every turn… Then on the other side, Smackle quickly finding her spot on the outskirts, not wanting to be caught in the middle of it all but also wanting to make sure she participated, Riley being in a lot of ways like the taller version of her brother, if with some more success in her hits, and then Maya herself, like some sharp shooting assassin, right in the thick of it and untouchable.

Tired out but filled with joy, they came to land, of all places, at Katy Hart’s old diner, just as they’d done nearly two years ago. Everyone scrambled to get six seats at the counter, although Maya couldn’t help but look back at the booth by the window. It was occupied now by two white haired little old ladies, talking over coffee, but she almost didn’t see them, only saw some ghostly afterimage of a couple of kids sitting there together, sharing a first kiss. Under that table, on the wall, both their names would be carved, hers from when she was eight years old, his from that moment they’d shared here.

April the waitress, her mother’s old friend, was once again at the counter, and when Maya told her that her mother was along for the trip, too, the woman asked to pass on the message that she should drop by, and Maya promised at once. For now, the six of them sat there, side by side, dripping snow at their feet while they warmed themselves with hot chocolate and Christmas cookies, April’s treat. Maya breathed it all in, smiling to herself. This really was a good day… the rebirth of New York in her heart.

TO BE CONTINUED


	52. Her Cheer For Friends

The rest of their first day in New York had been spent back at the Minkus home with their families, winding down after the long day they’d all had, with the flight and all that was involved. For once, the slight time difference worked in their favor, and they turned in early but reasonably so. In the morning, they crowded together, all of them, for a breakfast for the masses.

Soon after, Maya had taken off, her and Riley, Lucas, Farkle, and Smackle all headed out on a mission most important. They were set to go skating later that day, but for now they had some shopping to do, and it wasn’t for presents. This year had felt somewhat different from what they were used to. For one thing, a sizable chunk of their group wouldn’t be in attendance at Christmas, so the routine of doing Secret Santa was kept, but those left in Texas would choose from within their group, and those bound for New York would do the same there. However, as an added sort of conundrum, they couldn’t ignore the fact that they suddenly found themselves with more money on their hands than they were used to having. But then they were apprehensive to use it. That was supposed to be for the trip, wasn’t it?

So, they had decided to explore different avenues this time around. They didn’t need to go and buy things, did they? They could make something, they could do something, they could pass something on if they knew the people in question would get far better use of them than they would. Before long the idea had taken all of them by storm. All at once they realized they didn’t have to restrict themselves to one or two gifts anymore, and that was very exciting. It would require more thought for some than for others, but the challenge was well met.

Maya had it sort of easy. She had drawn, she had painted… so many things, for or about them, over the years, and it would have been no sweat to do the same here. All it would require of her would be time. But she wanted to use this chance to do something special, so she’d given it some thought.

As she’d still been trying to come up with something though, she’d found out what Lucas was working on. He’d had woodworking this year and the year before at school, and he’d really taken to it, which had led to his deciding to make his gifts for his friend in this fashion. All at once, she’d had the idea and she’d run it by him, prefacing with the insistence that he should tell her the truth if he didn’t want it. He could make the pieces… and she could paint them.

“So, it would be from the both of us?” he’d asked, and she’d nodded. He’d thought about it for all of a second before extending his hand with a grin. She’d clasped it happily, giving a hearty shake.

The last few weeks, any free time they had was spent on the gifts. The wood had been acquired, gifted both from school and from Lucas’ grandfather, to create ten hinged boxes. Each time one was completed by him, it would be passed on to her, so that she might add to it the painted design she’d come up with. As moments for them to share and hold on to went, at the close of this year, it had been about as wonderful as she could have wanted it to be. She’d tease him with any number of woodworking puns, while he would quietly nudge her fingers away from pointing anywhere near the tools. Once she’d gotten her first box to paint, the policing on his end turned into her telling him to keep on working instead of just watching her trace lines and shapes and letters.

One by one, the boxes had been completed, the finishing touch being their signatures on the bottom. Three of them had been wrapped and stashed in their bags for the trip, the other seven had been left in Texas, delivered to sit beneath the Christmas trees of the Babineaux, Zhu, Orlando, Garcia, Fitz, and Shelby families, under strict instructions not to be opened until the morning of the 25th.

More presents had been distributed, from all of them, from those leaving to those staying and the same in reverse, all of them along with the combined gifts from Maya and Lucas, had been deposited around the small tree they would assemble in Farkle’s room, ‘portable Christmas’ as they would call it. This would be acquired today, funded by the collective parents.

“Ornaments, here!” Riley scurried off when she saw them, and Maya was right at her heel, as she would always be, more often than not, the better to make sure she didn’t run off and get hurt or something. They had already grabbed stringed lights, which had been something of a debate before multi colored had won out. Lucas was carrying the boxes in his arms, trailing along as Farkle and Smackle discussed the merits of natural and artificial trees.

After what felt like an eternity, they were returning to the Minkus home, victorious, and an hour more was gone before the small tree – natural had won out – was up, and decorated, and boasting a sizable pile of gifts from friends near and far. Standing back to take in their handiwork, the five of them looked very pleased with themselves. They took a picture, sent it to those ‘far’ friends back in Austin.

“Alright, well now I’m hungry,” Maya declared. “Let’s go grab something.” She could do with more of New York while she had it.

TO BE CONTINUED


	53. Her Cheer For Family

After dinner, as planned, they found themselves lacing up rented skates and getting on to the ice, most of them anyway. Farkle’s parents had stayed behind at home, as had Lucas’ parents, so it was Maya and her parents, Riley and her brother and her parents, and Lucas, Farkle, and Smackle. At least it was, up until they got there, and then Katy had gone and changed her mind, deciding to stay on the sidelines to watch them.

“Oh, Mom, come on, we can race them, Hunter-Harts versus Matthews,” Maya begged her with a twinkle in her eye. “We can recruit Lucas on our team, too, we’ll get them good.”

“Not tonight,” her mother shook her head apologetically. “It’s just been too long,” she added. “But you go, go and race your dad,” she nodded to Shawn, already out there, chasing after Cory for some reason, leaving the history teacher looking like he had a wolf at his heels.

Maya wished she could have changed her mind, but she didn’t press on the matter, quickly leaning to give her mother a kiss on the cheek before skating off to join the others. She could see Riley and her mother, standing on the ice more than anything, and Farkle and Smackle making a peaceful circuit of the ice, while Auggie was laughing, letting himself get pulled along by Lucas, who had his hands in his and was skating backward.

“Hey, Hunter!” she called to her father as she approached. He stopped, allowing Riley’s father to escape, unaware that he wasn’t being chased anymore until several seconds later. “Race you?” He had a confused look when he saw she was alone, lifting his shoulders as though to ask ‘where’s your mother?’ “Sitting out,” Maya pointed back over her shoulder. “So, it’s just you and me.”

“Is that right?” he asked, and she was pleased to see the return of that competitive look in his eye; it was so easy to get it out of him.

“Yeah, better get a move on!” she called before taking off at once, laughing when she heard him move to follow behind her.

It was just as well that they were able to weave about and find themselves a ‘race track’ that would keep them from colliding into anyone, as they had a tendency to get a bit relentless when a challenge was extended. Several times he would pass ahead of her, and then she would catch up and be in front again, and then in time get passed again.

“Okay, okay, alright, you win, you win,” her father finally declared after minutes of this, and Maya turned about to beam at him, making him laugh. He held up his hands and she gave each a high five before he wrapped her in what she’d call ‘the mighty dad hug.’ It was pretty much one of the best things about having him in her life. “You glad we came here this year?” he asked, and she knew he had to be thinking about that other trip they’d taken here. To him it wouldn’t be about the diner of course, it would be the effect it had had on her, being back in the city which had once been her home.

“So much,” she smiled.

“Well I’m glad you’re glad,” he declared. “If you want to go and skate with your friends…”

“Not right now,” she told him, pulling back. “I’m good here.”

So, they’d gone on skating, at normal speed this time, while Maya told her father about her adventures earlier that day, shopping for their little travelers’ tree and its trimmings. The ornaments they had selected were as mismatched and confused as could be, on their own at least, but then once they’d ended up on the tree together, it truly felt like they’d created something that worked. She was very proud of the result, and it showed on her face, which then turned to her father feeling that pride in return.

In time, Mr. Matthews got his ‘revenge,’ sending his best friend into a new chase, leaving Maya to her own devices. Lucas was quick to land at her side, and she teased him just a bit, imagining him standing out there, waiting for his moment while she was off with her father. They skated about a while, hand in hand, as she tried and failed to convince him to lift or throw her, like figure skaters did. He just had this look on his face like all he could see himself do was accidentally drop her and hurt her. In the end she abandoned the quest, and they went on just enjoying their peaceful stroll, skating about, just them and a December night in New York.

They regrouped with the others in time, soon finding themselves sharing stories of first skates, some in early childhood, others a little later. Maya recalled with Riley and Farkle how the three of them had gone when they were eight years old, along with their school, and Farkle had chased them the whole time, never catching them, and eventually tripping and falling, which had gotten the girls to stop and come to his aid, which he’d tried to claim as his having caught them.

Maya broke from the group after a while, wanting to go and sit with her mother a bit, feeling bad that she’d be out there on her own watching all of them. She hadn’t abandoned the possibility of getting her to change her mind and come and skate with them after all. Even if she hadn’t done it in a few years, it didn’t mean that she couldn’t get the hang of it again, and Maya was confident that she could convince her of this. She would gladly lead her along by the hands if she had to.

TO BE CONTINUED


	54. Her Cheer For Surprises

In the time Maya had raced her father and skated with her friends, her mother had apparently gone off to acquire a snack and something to drink before returning, as Maya skated up to find her picking pieces off a large muffin, a cup steaming at her side, which she discovered to be hot chocolate when her mother offered her a sip to warm herself up. She accepted it gladly, holding on to the cup as she sat next to her.

“You know, I remember when you showed me how to skate,” Maya told her, getting a smile out of her mother. “I thought I was just going to fall on my face, but you promised you wouldn’t let me go, you said I’d be safe so long as I held on to your hands.”

“And I was right, wasn’t I?” Katy gave her a look.

“You were,” Maya confirmed, then, “I won’t let you fall on your face either, you know? Just come and skate with us, please?”

“Maya…” her mother sighed, shaking her head, once again refusing.

“It’ll come back to you, it will. How often do we get a chance like this? Ice skating at Christmas in New York… It’ll be like old times,” she begged, but her mother wouldn’t budge.

“I’m really sorry, Maya, I wish I could, really…” she gave her hand a touch, and Maya looked back at her now, something about this statement feeling curious. She tried to put her finger on it, staring at her mother. The way she spoke, it didn’t feel anymore like she was scared because she hadn’t skated in a while.

Come to think of it, that had always been Maya’s own guess as to why her mother wouldn’t join them, and her mother had never denied it. But she hadn’t confirmed it either, like she was just going along with it because it was what Maya assumed and it was convenient. But now, in trying to comfort her daughter, it felt as though she’d inadvertently tipped her hand just a bit. And that one small glimpse brought Maya to re-evaluate what she had seen and what she was seeing now.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, slowly. Her mother looked at her.

“Wrong? No…” she shook her head. “What do you…”

“Why won’t you skate with us? Really?” Her mother didn’t reply, only staring at her, before looking back to the ice, the skaters. They could see Shawn was still being chased by Cory, although going by the chased’s face, he was leading his chaser on more than anything. It made Katy laugh, breathing out, and she took another bite of her muffin, leaving her daughter to wonder if she was just dodging the question, or if she’d dodged so far that she’d gotten distracted and forgotten it, drawn into some other thought kept to her mind alone. “Mom…”

“What?” she turned back to her, then seeming to recall the question, she let out another breath, as though she was considering something. She looked around for another moment, an expression on her face which Maya felt she both recognized and understood for having had it on her own face several times. She was taking in her surroundings, to better internalize a memory for safekeeping, so when she thought about it again, she could remember exactly where she was, how she felt… Her mother had it all, with an extra shot of a shiver. She was nervous about what it was she was about to say… nervous but happy? “Maya…” she started, just as the pieces of the puzzle she had wrongly assembled as ‘I haven’t skated in a few years’ rearranged themselves in Maya’s mind to create another image, one that made a lot more sense.

“Woah…” she sat up, eyes gone wide, and her mother held up her hand to stall her.

“Please let me say it?” she asked with a light laugh. “Because I’ve been trying to think of how to tell you for days, and I couldn’t find the right way, or the right time.” Maya just looked at her, grasping her hand with what felt like a wide smile just waiting to burst out as soon as the volcano went boom. “Now we’re here, so here goes… Maya… my baby girl…” she started, getting a coy little smirk at this, and what seemed like the start of tears, “You’re always going to be my baby girl, no matter how old you are, and even when _you’re_ not the baby anymore, because you’ll be the big sister…”

Maya waited no longer before throwing her arms around her mother, holding her close. Katy laughed, hugging her back, relief washing off of her for having released her secret and found it received in this way. When Maya pulled back, she was crying, too, tears rolling along her smile.

“Wait, does he know?” she asked, trying to think if she’d seen any sign of her father’s knowing. Surely if he did she would have seen something; he didn’t seem like the kind who wouldn’t have told any and all he met already, and her mother proved her right.

“No, not yet. I only found out last week, and I told myself… well, Christmas is coming, and as presents go, that one sounded perfect. And besides… I kind of wanted to tell you first,” she admitted.

“Wow,” Maya breathed, still processing the news. “So, we should probably pull ourselves together before we blow the surprise, right?”

“Yeah, good thinking,” her mother agreed, taking on ‘actress face,’ as they would call it back in the day, and Maya did the same, though eventually it only had them laughing some more. In the end, she looked around, as her mother had done a moment before. She wanted to remember this moment, too.

TO BE CONTINUED


	55. Her Cheer For Secrets

The last little while they spent out on the ice was honestly sort of a blur to her, as she went about pretending like nothing had happened, so not to reveal her mother’s secret before the moment when she wanted it to be revealed. She had skated with her friends again, and then they’d made their way back to the Minkus home. She’d made it about as far as changing into PJs before the blur bubble burst and she just stood there, staring at their little travelers’ tree, and let herself remember that moment sitting with her mother, let herself remember and feel as well.

It wasn’t as though she hadn’t known this would be happening sooner or later, whether they spelled it out in so many words or not, and at no time had she felt like this would be anything but something wonderful, having a little brother or sister, more than one even. Acknowledging this was easy, where it concerned her mother and father… her mother and Shawn… but it also brought up the fact that, well, she already _was_ a big sister, to siblings she didn’t know, thanks to her father… to Kermit and his new wife, new family. But was she a sister if these siblings were in no way part of her life? She’d never met them, only knew that they existed somewhere out there. They had shared blood, but that was all.

It wouldn’t be this way, not with this baby growing inside her mother. She would be there, she would be a sister, and oh how she would be a good sister, a great one… She would love that little thing… would love… already did. Already there, in her heart, a space had opened, with strong walls, ready to welcome the life they would share.

She stood staring at their tree, thinking of her sibling to be, and she just… laughed, beaming brightly to herself. It wasn’t until a moment later that she actually remembered she _wasn’t_ by herself.

“What’s so funny?” Smackle asked, and Maya turned around to see her friends there around the room, staring back at her.

“I, uh…” she started, hesitating.

Her mother hadn’t specifically told her not to say anything to them, but really it felt like it would have to be self evident. With this lot, much as she knew she could put a secret in their hands and feel they would keep it, there were certain secrets which were just too heavy to be held without the effort sending a quiver through one’s arm, a stumble, and then down it would go, dropped by mistake but dropped nonetheless. They had two days to Christmas, and until then… she just couldn’t say anything, even to them.

But she didn’t want to lie, either… And she had to say something. She was taking too long to answer them, they’d know already that something was going on, and they wouldn’t let it go, because they were good friends and that was sort of what you did. Well they _were_ good friends, and for that maybe she could be honest while also holding to what she knew.

“There _is_ something,” she started, carefully, “A secret, and it’s not mine to give. It _will_ be given, just… not now.” She stopped there, nodded slowly to herself, satisfied, before looking back to her friends to see what they would do now. When they looked like they were about to say something, she held up a warning finger. “Don’t ask for details, don’t even really try and think about it, just know that everything’s fine and all will be revealed soon. Deal?” she asked, looking to each one in turn until they had agreed.

Even though they _had_ agreed to her terms, it quickly became evident that they hadn’t entirely known how to abandon her sudden curious behavior. As they’d settled in for a movie, Riley had been right there, shoulder to shoulder with her, and much as she would do her best to focus on the screen, her eyes would divert toward her best friend, with barely contained questions there on her face. Maya would not look at her, knowing full well that way meant trouble, but Riley would carry on. Maya would also see those questions on Farkle and Smackle’s faces, though for their part it seemed much more internal. They would take on this puzzle as just that, a puzzle, and one they could solve, would solve, if they only had sufficient time to think it over.

“You, too?” she mouthed to Lucas, sitting at her other side, when she caught him looking at her. He gave a small shrug, grasping her hand, and it as good as explained his part in this. It wasn’t so much that he was trying to pry in, but he couldn’t help himself wondering if she was alright even if she’d said all was well. He only ever wanted to know she was okay, couldn’t help himself. All she could do was give him a wink, ensuring him once again that whatever it was she was keeping from them was a good thing.

The next couple of days would be rough, she knew, at least where keeping this secret a secret was concerned. She just knew that whenever she’d think about it she would start smiling again, laughing, too… And if it was hard to keep it from her friends, she could only imagine how it would be around everyone else, her father most of all. She’d just have to bury herself in the merriment of the holidays, and the city. Two days… she could hang on. It would be well worth it in the end, when she got to see the look on her father’s face, the moment he got his secret gift…

TO BE CONTINUED


	56. Her Cheer For Christmas

Maya awoke on Christmas morning, as she had often done over the years when the two of them had sleepovers, with Riley’s head digging into her back. It made her smile, feeling in that moment like they were children again, both of them. They weren’t, of course, but they still had each other, so that was just as good. And they had the best of friends around them. And their families. And a traveler’s tree. And Christmas, and…

She sat up, startling Riley awake in the process, but only so long until she curled back in on herself and went back to sleep. Maya looked around the room. The others were all still asleep, too, and she was careful to keep it that way as she got up and walked silently out into the hall. Sneaking along, she heard nothing but ambient sounds, which told her that if any of the adults were awake, they were not doing much more than resting in the quiet of the morning.

When she came to the guest room where Mr. Minkus had set up her parents, she looked in to find her father was indeed still asleep, on his stomach, while her mother was awake at his side, looking as though she was lost in her thoughts, and going by the smile on her face, they were some very good thoughts. Maya quietly waved her hand to get her attention, and when her mother looked and saw her there, she smiled and waved her over. She moved to join her, but then, all of a sudden, she had an idea. She raised a finger and then scampered off, as discreet as possible. A cautious excursion back into Farkle’s room saw her return to her parents’ room, clasping a few markers in her hand.

Signalling for her mother to keep silent, she approached her father, prone there on the bed before brandishing a black marker, popping off the top and crouching to write on the back of his gray shirt. Her mother looked momentarily doubtful, but Maya gave her a look that said to trust her, so she trusted her, and a few seconds later, Katy smiled, understanding what she had in mind. She watched as her daughter traced the letters to write _Shawn & Katy & Maya & Baby makes four!_ The other markers were put to work in decorating the scene, all the while very aware that he could wake up at any second, and there were a few instances where both the Harts froze before confirming he still slept and they could continue.

When she was done with him, she’d moved around the bed to go to her mother, the mischief still alive in her as she sat with her and motioned for her to hold her own white shirt straight. Her mother obliged, and Maya leaned in, this time to mark the fabric to rest over her belly-to-be. Katy watched as she now wrote _Coming this…_ before turning her eyes inquisitively up to her. “August,” she mouthed the word, and Maya beamed and nodded before adding the word, capped with two exclamation points. The proclamation was surrounded with arrows pointing inward before Katy’s robe was retrieved, so she could put it on and keep her surprise for the big moment.

Katy took the markers from Maya now, twisting her finger around to tell her daughter to turn her back to her. Maya obliged, sweeping her braid around her shoulder and holding on to it as she allowed her mother to do her own bit of morning art. She tried to guess what was happening back there by the strokes of marker her mother was making. She could feel the uncertain strokes, like she wanted to make it as good as Maya had done the other two, but in time she had moved from letters to embellishments, and then she was done, confirmed when she put her arms around her daughter from behind, holding her near and pressing kisses to the side of her head.

When she returned to Farkle’s room, to both return the markers to their place – and to get her hoodie on to hide her shirt until the right moment – she stopped just inside the door to discover that she was no longer the only one awake.

“Morning… Christmas…” she whispered as Lucas got up from his inflatable mattress. Her back seized at once, entirely aware that she was so close to the end of the secret keeping and now had to get to her hoodie without turning away from him, which would in no way look natural. “Did you sleep okay?” she asked, inching onward nonetheless.

“Where’d you go?” he asked, ignoring the question and now focusing on the markers grasped in her hands. She shrugged, moving along.

“You know, I can’t wait to see how they like the boxes,” she did her own dodging as she continued toward the chair where her hoodie waited. When she saw the look on his face change all of a sudden it took a moment for her to realize… Not showing her back only worked so long as she didn’t do her whole sidestep act while passing a mirror. Even reflected, the words had been easy for him to understand. Maya stopped there, looking over her shoulder to see what he’d seen, too. Her mother had marked her shirt with large letters, covering most of her back, branding her as _Big Sister_ before crossing out the first word and amending it with _Best_. Seeing it now, Maya couldn’t help but smile, feeling a few tears make for an escape, and she turned back to Lucas, who was smiling now, too, and she motioned for him to not tell anyone and he nodded.

Not very long after, Maya – hoodie on – joined everyone for breakfast, all of them still in their pyjamas, as had been requested, so they might go and open presents after they’d finished eating. She smirked, seeing how her father had a robe of his own on, preventing him and anyone else from seeing the back of his shirt just yet, and she had to wonder if her mother had covertly incited this herself. The meal was merry and loud, all of them there around the table, which to Maya was just as well. There were three of them now around the table who knew what was coming, and none of them looked able to hold it in much longer.

Finally, it was time for presents, which was announced even louder by Auggie Matthews taking off like an arrow toward the Minkus tree, where everything was all piled up. They gathered there now, Farkle and his parents, and Smackle, and Lucas and his parents, and Riley and Auggie and theirs, and Maya and hers. A ‘Santa’ was to be elected, to do the handing out, and Maya was quick to nominate her father, the next bit of the plan coming to her in that moment. As he stood to do as he’d been told, Maya leaned over to her mother at her side, to whisper at her ear. Katy nodded quickly, as Maya took off her hoodie while they watched Shawn consider the mass of wrapped things, figuring where to start.

“You might want to lose the robe,” Katy called to her husband. “It’ll get too hot with all this… distributing,” she gestured. Shawn shrugged in agreement, pulling off the robe and tossing it on a nearby chair.

“Alright,” he faced the presents again, clasping his hands together. “Where to st…” He stopped, confused no doubt by the outburst of gasps behind him. Turning around, he could see everyone was staring at him with a range of emotions over their faces. Shock and surprise from the Minkus, Smackle, and Friar corner, elation and tears from the Matthews side, and from his wife and daughter, anticipation and grins? “What?” he asked. “What is it?”

“Well I don’t know, I mean…” Maya stood up, phone already in hand, front facing camera held before him. “I think there’s something on your back,” she informed him with a shrug. Frowning, he turned around, head tilting back to see her phone’s screen all the while. She could see as he read the words, confusion melting to surprise, to uncertainty. “Oh well,” she slipped the phone back in her pocket, turning around to return and sit by her mother, knowing his eyes would be planted on the words on her own back, until they could drift to his wife, the vest now pulled open to reveal the words drawn on the front of her shirt as she stared back at him with a tearfully brightened smile.

The hush, which had held all the while as Maya and Katy’s scheme ran its course, now broke as they all finally reacted in words and cheers, and Shawn, looking halfway like his legs would fail to carry him, moved to collect them both in his arms, his wife, his daughter… Maya held tight to them, feeling like the happiness coming off of them could have sustained them for weeks and weeks, well into the new year, the year that would see them become a bigger family still…

TO BE CONTINUED


	57. His Support For Developments

Much as they would have loved to stay in New York for the actual turn of the year, by the time they landed back in Texas it did sort of feel like the new year was already upon them, like they’d turned a page way up in the sky. They returned home and everything was new and full of possibilities.

As was to be expected, in the days that followed, all Maya could think about was her mother and this baby brother or sister she would have in a matter of months. As changes to a person’s life went, he had to guess this was one of the top ones, especially now, at the prospect of having a baby sibling in one’s life for the first time at their age. But then just thinking this, he would end up reminding himself how technically it _wasn’t_ the first sibling she had. She’d told him some time ago about her birth father’s other children, for what little she knew of them except that they existed. He knew it would be on her mind, could practically see the thought work its way through her eyes every so often. They were her little siblings in title, in nothing more, and this baby would be different. He didn’t know if and how it would continue to affect her as the months passed, but if it did, well… he’d be there in whatever way she needed him to be.

Even at his house the topic of Katy and Shawn’s baby-to-be was a common subject, primarily from his mother. She and Katy had been friends since that day of the museum, where he and Maya had gone running around on their own, and anyone who knew Melinda Friar knew she was very faithful to and involved in her close friendships. If you could look past the intensity, you would find the fierceness and the warmth in her was strong and true, always. He’d lost count of how many times he’d either been made the messenger, or the times he’d either come along to find her on the phone with Katy Hart, or still the times he’d been with Maya and realized the person her mother was talking to on the phone was his mother.

But then the way Maya told it, her mother was nervous enough about the whole thing that to have not only Melinda Friar but Topanga Matthews, and Lynette Babineaux, and Maria Zhu, and Gina Orlando, and Kate Garcia, and Tessa and Siobhan Fitz, and any number of the basketball moms in her life and her circle of friends, of people she could call on and talk to, meant more to her than she could say, now more than ever. So, if his mother wanted to provide some assistance, any and all of it was welcome.

With school starting again, the second half of their sophomore year felt as though it was bracing itself, refreshed and ready to run until summer freed them for weeks and weeks. The first notable thing to come with this was the announcement that Maya’s quiz team, the Basket Cases, had their first real and proper competition coming up, finally facing other people in an entirely more formal setting. When Mr. Matthews had informed her, and Nadine and Rebecca, at the end of history class that day, the three girls had scurried off to track down Scott and let him know.

By the time she’d made her way to the cafeteria to join Lucas and the others for lunch, he could see on her face something he hadn’t seen much this year so far and since the days of being on the basketball team, when a game was coming up. She was preparing herself mentally, she was excited, she felt good… Seeing that spark in her, he swore, was some magical experience. He would see it and he would feel even he could accomplish anything that was set before him.

He did still miss having the basketball team as something in his life. Sure, they all still played sometimes, whenever they actually had the time, which wasn’t all the time now, with everything else they had to do, but it wasn’t the same. Whenever he’d run into his old teammates, and Maya and Nadine’s old teammates, all of them would get the occasional sort of silent beat, thinking about their whole situation. They were supposed to review the matter and decide whether they would reinstate the teams for next year… somewhere by the end of this year, they figured, and the wait was getting to be just a bit more nerve-wracking as time went on. If they got the teams back, would they all still get to be on them? And if they didn’t bring them back… what would happen then?

They’d made it this far, hadn’t they? They’d made it and they hadn’t ended up stuck in perpetual sadness either. They were thriving, all of them, finding new roads to travel… growing. And if this was the takeaway from losing the teams, then maybe he could accept it. So long as it was all of them together, then nothing could be so bad. He had his family, he had his friends, he had the girl he loved… He was doing well in school, and his work at the museum was interesting just as much as it was providing for their eventual trip. If he was missing one thing still, maybe in some part of him he could feel like it was only temporary. Life would find a way, he truly believed it. He hadn’t been proven wrong yet.

TO BE CONTINUED


	58. His Support For Nerves

As the weeks had gone on, where Maya had become part of her quiz team, a new routine had settled in where, on top of picking her up from home in the morning. Lucas would go and wait for her, to take her home after a meeting with Mr. Matthews and the rest of the team. Sometimes Zay would be there waiting with him, to do the same with Nadine, as he was that day. His best friend had gotten it in his head that the four of them should go on a double date. His reasoning went that, after all this time of them all being couples, it was a wonder they hadn’t done it yet. Lucas couldn’t disagree with that, although he wouldn’t make any commitment to this without seeing what Maya thought of it. He wasn’t opposed to it, and that was as much as he could say until he heard Maya’s side of it, even if he was just about sure she would be up for it, too.

When the team emerged from the classroom, Rebecca and Scott waved at them as they walked off together, and Nadine took Zay’s arm and hurried him off, as they were due to her house to look after her sisters. Lucas was left to greet Maya with a smile and a kiss before she stuck herself to his side with a tired sigh.

“That bad, huh?” he asked, putting his arm around her shoulders as they started to walk down the hall.

“Not bad, just… Nadine went and looked up the team we’re going to face off against, and they’re supposed to be a really big one, so now everyone’s a little on edge.”

“That’s never stopped you before,” he tried to point out, and she gave a smile.

“Well that was basketball, not exactly the same skillset. Throw me the ball and I know what to do with it, but now… I can faceplant in front of everyone, all from the comfort of a chair!” she declared with fake cheerfulness before breathing out and bowing her head into his shoulder.

“Hey, hey,” he gave her arm a rub, tipping his head to kiss the top of hers. “Come on, you’re Maya Hart,” he did his own cheerful intonation, no faking. “And whether or not you beat them, I know you’re going to give them one hell of a challenge. They won’t know what hit them.”

“I know you mean it, I do…” she replied, betraying just a bit of comfort received in her voice.

“You let yourself get psyched out, it happens. So maybe instead of getting psyched out, I can get you psyched… up,” he suggested.

“Can you now,” she asked with a curious smirk.

“Yes,” he nodded firmly. “This is you guys’ first time out there, so they don’t know you, they don’t know what to expect. So, you show them. Show them who you are, show them that _they’re_ the ones who should get psyched out. Like ‘oh crap, we got the Basket Cases.’” That finally got a laugh out of her, and it only encouraged him to carry on. “Before you guys knew who you were going up against, remember how you felt then. Forget the rest, just think about the work you all put in. How do you think your team is doing?”

“Pretty solid,” she admitted with a nod.

“So there,” he nodded along as they walked down the steps and toward the parking lot.

“Hey,” she stopped him, moving from his side in order to face him, before stretching up to kiss him. He kissed her back, holding her close and keeping her there in his arms as they pulled back and looked to one another. “Thanks,” she told him. “For… all of that,” she motioned back to the school.

“Oh, not for this, too?” he teased, and she chuckled.

“I don’t know, do you want ‘thanks’ to be the answer to a kiss?” she asked. “Sounds a bit too formal to me, but hey…”

“So, what’s the proper answer to that then?” he asked, and she answered, both the kiss and the question, in another kiss. “If that’s the answer, then we’ll always owe each other another one… This may never be over…” he gave a ‘stunned’ look.

“My master plan at work,” she declared, at peace and swaying in his arms.

“Well you’re welcome… for the words… And there will always be more of that if you need it,” he promised, and she nodded; she knew.

Getting in the car, they started on their way to Maya’s home, until she remembered she needed to pick up something for her mother on the way, and so they made the detour, as Maya told him about the other errand she’d almost been sent on. Her mother had wanted her to go and pick up some pregnancy book for her, before thinking she might as well go herself, not wanting anyone to get the wrong impression. Lucas laughed, though at the same time he had to agree, just as Maya did. He could imagine what it would have looked like, the pair of them in that bookstore.

“Hey, are we allowed to have signs at those competitions?” he asked as they drove on. “Like at the games, the ones you made…”

“I don’t know, maybe. You’re gonna have one either way, aren’t you?” she guessed.

“A big one. Should I put glitter on it?” She burst into giggles at this, no doubt picturing him covered in glitter as he tried to put a sign together.

“You put whatever you want on it,” she told him. “I’ll love it.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	59. His Support For Chances

A man of his word, Lucas returned Maya home before heading off in search of supplies, the better to let what artistic skills he might have had help him create a sign for him to hold in the air and show his support for his girlfriend and their friends on the Basket Cases quiz bowl team. He would spend the better part of the evening on the project, ‘tools’ laid about the dining room table like the tools of a surgeon. He was thankful that, early on in the process, his father had taken it upon himself to keep his mother occupied, so not to have her hanging about in some attempt to ‘assist’ him in her exuberant way. This was to be his creation and no one else’s.

Sometimes he found himself almost… envying… Maya’s quiz team. They’d found something, in the wake of the basketball teams’ loss, something to give them back at least some part of what had been taken from them, even under an entirely different heading. Academia over sport, but team competition nonetheless… It made him miss his old team even more.

After a while it had just become a part of who he was. He was a basketball player, for two years, and somehow it had become a given that he would carry on and play and be part of that team for the rest of his time in high school, maybe even beyond, in college. He didn’t think he would go so far as to see himself doing it beyond that, in any long-term capacity, but for the time being, these were supposed to be the years he’d get that shot, and now… through no fault of his own, or his teammates’, it was just gone. The closer they would get to the school’s decision on the coming year being made known, the harder it became to just sit there and wait to find out.

Maybe what he needed was something else, like Maya had. Oh, he wasn’t looking to be on the quiz team like she was. As supportive as he was and would be of her through the whole thing, he knew it wasn’t his thing and would not become his thing. He was well satisfied at the fact that she’d never so much as asked if he wanted to join the team, back when she was assembling it. She’d known enough that she didn’t need to consider him a candidate.

So, he wasn’t going to be on a quiz team, fine, but there might be some other thing for him to do. On the one hand, he didn’t necessarily want to commit to anything long term just yet. If basketball was going to be back on track next fall, he didn’t want to get himself caught in an impasse, trying to decide whether to stick with what he’d started or return to what he was getting back. It almost didn’t seem possible that they wouldn’t get the team back for next year, but then this whole situation had sort of shown him he did need to consider the so-called impossible. If he did find something to fill that hole, it had to be something he could both commit to for the time being and, when the decision dropped, either step back or carry forward depending on what that decision was.

It was one thing to know he wanted to think of something, another to actually find that something, as he soon realized. His mind was blanking on what his options would be, and it nearly made him make a mistake on the sign he was working on for Maya’s team. He muttered to himself, shaking his head to try and clear it before getting back to work. The sign was coming together well enough. It wasn’t as though he needed to be museum-worthy with this thing, but he wanted it to be great because she would have done the same for him in return… She _had_ done the same for him, for him and the whole team, his and hers. She deserved something just as good in return… as good as he could make it.

By the time it was all done and he could sit back and inspect his handiwork, he felt he had done a pretty good job, and he sort of had to smile. Gathering up his materials and his sign, he went back up to his room. The sign was propped up against the side of his desk before he sat at the chair and stared at his computer. He could look for something on there, something for him to do. There had to be lists somewhere, right? Or he could ask Mr. Matthews. He worked for the school, he would know. But then maybe he needed to at least do some research first.

Maybe he could get some of the guys from the team to do the same as him. He knew they missed it, too, especially those who were graduating this year, the girls, too. Some of them had found their very own alternatives, too, with another sport, but it was too late for him on that front. Others would probably have decided to take this as the means to focus even more on their studies. Should he be doing that? He was doing well enough, wasn’t he?

When the tone rang on his computer screen, he realized he’d been lost in thought as he startled and looked up. He saw the call coming in was from Farkle though, and he sat up and smiled, connecting the call. His friend and brother’s face appeared, and Lucas couldn’t help but think his call had come at just the right moment. Farkle would be just the person for him to share his query with…

TO BE CONTINUED


	60. His Support For Options

When Farkle’s face appeared on his screen, Lucas couldn’t help but chuckle, seeing he had on the hat his mother had given him for Christmas. Even before they’d left Texas, she’d been at once going on and on about how it would look wonderful on him, just as she would halt and express concern as to whether or not he would like it. Lucas had gone so far as to warn both Maya and Riley about it, feeling strongly that the moment they saw it they would feel prone to react, perhaps not in any way that would improve the situation. And that was just as well, as they’d been able to prevent other, uninformed parties, primarily Smackle and Auggie, from saying anything that would get any of them in trouble.

Farkle had claimed he loved the hat, and he’d thanked Mrs. Friar for it, getting strong hugs for it, and Lucas couldn’t say for sure whether Farkle was being honest or if he was just saying it for his mother’s benefit. But now here he was, the hat perched on his head.

“My mother’s not going to walk in and see you, you know?” he told his friend, his brother in New York.

“Okay?” Farkle replied, showing he had no clue why it would matter one way or the other if she did, and Lucas was further impressed in realizing he was actually wearing the hat because he wanted to. “You texted. Did you want to talk about something?” Farkle went on, and it took Lucas a moment before he remembered why he’d asked him to call.

“I did, I do,” he confirmed with a nod, sitting up in his chair.

He explained his whole sort of internal dilemma, the thing with Maya and her quiz team, and the lack of the basketball team, and now his wanting to go and do something to fill a sort of void which had started to reveal itself in him, but also minding the possibility that he might get basketball back in the fall…

Farkle sat there, considering the question set before him, made only that much more amusing once the hat was included. Lucas watched, and waited, and thanked his lucky stars he had kept himself from laughing aloud here.

“You could have some options in school… out of school, too,” he declared after a while, his voice slowing like he was thinking of something for a moment, only to stop and turn back to him like he’d abandoned the idea just as quick as he’d had it.

“No, wait, what were you thinking?” Lucas asked him before he could wander too far off. At this point, he wanted to hear any and all ideas, whether or not his friend believed it would fit him or not.

“It’s just some of the others in my class and I have a team, if you wanted to join, I mean one more wouldn’t be a problem, and if you had to leave eventually…”

“I never heard you mention a team before,” Lucas frowned with curiosity. “What kind of team?”

“Well…” Farkle replied, it felt, as though he meant to stall and take his time, looking around his room, absently reaching to straighten out his hat. Did he not want him on that team? Or did he just not want to tell him about it? He hadn’t said anything before, and here Lucas had figured they were pretty good as far as telling each other about what was going on with their lives, the better to compensate for the distance. “It’s a sort of… well, it’s a, uh… we do some roleplaying…” he explained, with hesitation in his voice that now made Lucas think Farkle thought he’d get laughed at, which really seemed ridiculous, seeing as it was him he was talking to.

He had never laughed at him, about any part of who he was, right down to the hat he now wore atop his head. All he could think about was that maybe someone, or some others, _had_ been mocking him, and much as he’d never let it get to him too much, this time it did. So maybe it wasn’t that he didn’t want him on that team… Maybe he _really_ wanted him there, but he was afraid he’d say no, on top of laughing at him.

“Who else is on your team?” Lucas asked, showing himself interested, in the team itself if not in joining as of yet.

“Oh, well, Smackle, of course. Then the others, you might remember them from that time you guys all came to our school. Kenny, and Charlotte, and Fred?” The names did sort of ring some bells. In his head he could see a dark-skinned boy, sort of short and skinny like he had missed out on a growth spurt or two, and a girl with a mass of red curls and so many freckles they seemed to dominate her face, and another boy, with a build like he might have grown to be an athlete when he was anything but.

“Yeah, kinda,” he told Farkle. He considered the whole thing as the boy on the screen went on to explain a bit more about what his joining would entail, and after a few minutes, Lucas held up his hand to silence him long enough so he could tell him that he was in.

“You are?” Farkle asked, looking so overwhelmingly glad for it that the hat almost fell off his head, and it made Lucas smile.

“I am,” he confirmed with a nod. He was coming to see that, though it might not have been entirely what he had imagined doing at first, it would be something that not only allowed him to spend more time – in whatever way he could, minding the distance – with the boy he called his brother, but it would be something mutually beneficial, and that only made it all the more appealing to him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	61. His Support For Practice

That Friday after school, they gathered at Lucas’ house. Normally, this could not have happened, with so many of them working, but then every so often, they would come to find that their days off coincided, and this could only mean one thing. They would come together, hang out, watch some movies, or marathon some show or another, or play at someone’s hoop until the stars were out… This time though, Lucas had an idea, and he’d recruited the others to help him in the endeavor, most of them at least. This was to be a surprise, for Maya, and Nadine, and Rebecca and Scott. They would drill them, a practice run for the meet, now eight days away. He knew the four of them had practiced a lot with Mr. Matthews, but never the four of them together as a team, and he thought it would help them shake off the nerves, feel more like a team, and, well, just have fun with the whole thing instead of being stressed.

They had set up the whole thing in the basement, him and Zay and Asher and Dylan. Two long tables, four chairs to each, with a podium in the middle, buzzers to press, a score board, a couch for the audience to watch and cheer. When they arrived at the house, the group was led down the basement steps, four of them clueless to the surprise awaiting them. Scott Shelby had been both surprised and happy to be included into their activities, although it was becoming more of a recurring thing with them now, and much as they all liked having him there, too, there was no doubt at all which member of their group was most thrilled to have him there.

The Basket Cases had found the makeshift grounds for their practice run with a gasp of surprise as much as appreciation to their friends. When asked if they were ready to go for it, there was no question. Now, as it went, the four of them on the team would sit at the table marked for them, leaving the other six to decide who would sit at the table opposing them, who would stand at the ‘podium’ and ask the questions, and who would sit on the couch and operate the score board as well as cheer along.

“Small audience,” Rebecca pointed out with a smirk as Joey found himself the lone man on that couch, holding the score board.

“Yeah, give it a while,” Lucas told her, with what might have looked like mischief hidden in the back of his gaze, as he went to stand at the podium. Riley, Zay, Dylan, and Asher were sitting at the rival table.

“Do an announcer voice,” Maya requested, planting her chin in her hands with an exaggerated dreamy look and a grin.

Not a minute later, they heard the doorbell from above, followed by the telltale sound of Mrs. Friar’s shoes, and then… many voices? Before the four at the Basket Cases table could ask what was going on, the Friar basement was invaded by a stampede of feet coming down the steps, those feet attached to very familiar people. Soon, Joey was joined on and around the couch – much to his awkward discomfort – by Ray, Étienne, Tommy, Blake, Stevie, Rene, and Kenji of the defunct boys’ basketball team, and Julianne, Sofia, Anna, Heather, Lizzy, Melanie, and Tasha of the girls’. Last of all, and the greatest surprise – for the fact that the two of them had graduated and gone off to college in California – came the former captains, Nathan Shelby and Riya Chari.

Maya and Nadine, already having gone to greet the others, went and rushed the girl with a great hug, much to Riya’s amusement, while Scott hugged his older brother with a look suggesting he’d half suspected this visit and was now thrilled to be proven right. Their sister jumped in on this hug, prompting Riley’s exclamation of there being ‘so many Shelbys.’

“Alright, alright, everyone to your places!” Lucas called over the noise of everyone talking over one another. They all turned to him, blinking for a moment before scurrying off to do as told. The Basket Cases were at their table, while the rival table huddled together for a moment, sneaking looks back toward the now fourteen-strong audience as they made themselves comfortable – for the most part – and whispering amongst themselves. After a minute, they all nodded and turned to the audience.

“Yeah, so we want to make some trades,” Asher announced.

“What, you can’t do that!” Maya pointed at him before turning to Lucas. He said nothing, but he gave her a shrug as though to say ‘you’re fine, you’ve got this.’ After a moment she straightened up and calmly fixed the other table with a look. “Fine, do your worst,” she challenged.

In no time, Zay had given up his spot to Ray Choi, while Dylan gave his to Julianne Shelby. They joined the audience while the new recruits joined Asher and Riley, and the contestants took their places. Much as they were all great friends, it was impossible not to think how all of them at the rival table would have made fine additions to their team, which increased the challenge. But they were ready. They aimed to win.

Lucas hoped all four of them at the Basket Cases table would benefit from all this as they’d hoped, though if he was honest of course he was most focused on Maya and how she would fare. Though she didn’t know it yet, this afternoon’s activities were merely the start. The next day would be something else entirely, and he couldn’t wait to see the look on her face then.

TO BE CONTINUED


	62. His Support For Her

The next day, Saturday, Lucas was up early. There was plenty for him to do that day, the earlier the better, in order for him to get to do what he really meant to do that day, in the evening. Plenty of them had needed to plan things out ahead of time for this day, too, but then as the one who’d gone setting it all in motion, he held all the strings, and he wouldn’t see any of them slipping from his hands.

Surely, he hoped, he had buried the lede, with the previous afternoon’s surprise practice run, and with all their friends and the old teams getting together as they did. She wouldn’t suspect what would come today, despite the fact that she really, really should have. Her birthday _was_ just three days away.

Morning disappeared beneath chores, and homework, and a few errands his mother had found a way to send him on, despite the fact that he walked around the house like someone who had a very strictly laid out day ahead of him. But then he did have to get a few things of his own, so he could find a way to do what she needed him to do on top of that. He ran into several of the others as he ran those errands, and all of them had that same sort of conspiratorial look on their faces… Today was hers, for them as much as for him for once.

He’d gone to find her at the diner, at the end of her shift, so he might drive her home. He found his girlfriend stood there behind the counter, looking that specific kind of exasperated she would get, the kind where any unwise person who would approach her with any kind of grievance or disrespect would likely get an earful or two. This wasn’t exactly how he would have liked to have her be, for knowing what was coming, but then it was hardly possible for anyone to predict how one day or another would go. It would be alright; he’d just have to stretch his ‘best friend/boyfriend power’ muscles a bit more, to get her back on track. He would also have to find a way to allow her to get home and wash up and change without knowing about… other things.

First step was to listen to her as she laid out the reasons for her exasperation, the better to let them out, and from there he presented himself, the embodiment of good things, and peace, and fun, and love. Inch by inch her smile was pried from beneath the rubble and made ruler of all once again. By the time his car was pulling up to her house, she was looking forward to their hanging out that evening, and he was only slightly sorry it wouldn’t be just the two of them as she assumed it would.

If it wasn’t that she was working that afternoon and would need to get the diner out of her before things could move on, it might have been that they’d have had it all take place at her house. Instead, once she emerged from her room all fresh and changed, she asked if they could go over to Riley’s for a bit. Apparently, she’d just texted her, sounding deeply in need of her assistance for something. Lucas shrugged and agreed, as though he hadn’t been sitting there, waiting to hear the notification sound come from her phone as she was getting changed.

So off they went, for a ‘quick stop’ at Riley’s.

“Matthews!” Maya pointed to a car driving the opposite way they were going, turning her head to follow it. “Was that…”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, thanking his refusal to be anything but a very focused driver for allowing him some way to ignore the subject. After a moment, Maya shrugged it off, although he could just see her thinking of it again when they got to the house and she saw that the car in question was not there. _He_ knew it was indeed the Matthews car, carrying Riley’s parents and brother off to Maya’s house to visit Katy and Shawn for the evening.

Finally, they arrived, and he matched her casual, unassuming walk, trying _not_ to look like he was scanning the windows to see if he could spot anyone, or checking the street for any familiar cars parked nearby. All clear… They got to the door, and Maya rang the bell, and after a respectable length of time, Riley answered the door, looking like she had about twenty seconds of restraint left in her before her face showed that she was hiding something, so it was just as well that she had barely greeted them before the mass of friends who’d gathered for Maya’s birthday revealed themselves and erupted in wishes of ‘surprise!’ and ‘happy birthday!’

Maya let out the tiniest startled yelp, and Lucas had to laugh. He’d been so sure they wouldn’t pull this off, that someone would trip, some crack would show itself and allow her to figure out they were up to something. He gave the merit for her cluelessness to the fact that she was probably still thinking too much about the previous day, and the following weekend’s competition, and the rest hadn’t gotten through to her.

“Happy birthday… early,” he spoke at her side, once the cacophony of friends had quieted enough. She turned to him, a smile on her so strong that it seemed impossible she’d been scowling when he’d gone to pick her up earlier at the diner.

They were all there, all those same people who’d gathered for her and for her team the day before, including Nathan and Riya. Lucas had ensured they would stay an extra day before driving back to California. The only way the party would have been better would have been if they’d gotten the other girls from her old team who had also gone off to college, and if they’d gotten their friends from New York, too. But that was hardly going to change that Maya had a wonderful birthday party that Saturday, and that was all they would think about.

TO BE CONTINUED


	63. His Support For the Team

The week that followed, as the big day neared, seemed to rush by them so fast that it could really seem as though one moment they were celebrating Maya’s birthday, and the next they were here, the Saturday after, getting ready to head out and go see how the Basket Cases would do.

He didn’t think he’d seen Maya be more than an arm’s length away from one stack of index cards or another the whole week. She and the rest of the team seemed to have a few of those, covering a few different topics, that they would rotate between the four of them every morning when they met at the bench outside of school. As far as he could guess, it wouldn’t always be like this, each competition of theirs, but this one, being the first, being against the team they were going up against, they all wanted to put as much of a chance on their side as they could, and so there they were, working to take in information as best they could.

In a repeat of the previous week, his morning had been spent getting done what needed doing, this time maybe pushing on the speed of it, so he might be out there to join his girlfriend as quickly as he could. It would be nearly lunch time before he arrived at her house. He could see her already, sitting in her bay window, even as he drove up.

Her mother let him in with a nod as though to say ‘maybe you’ll have better luck,’ which he took to confirm what he’d expected. Driven as Maya was, if something ever managed to shake her, the tremors wouldn’t ever completely leave her until it was all over, and they could flare up at any time without warning. Now with the day arrived before them… it would be like an earthquake. Lucas at the very least took the time to stop and ask Katy how she was doing, knowing his mother would ask, as though the two of them hadn’t spoken just the day before. Katy assured him all was going well, and that for his sake she would spare him the details. With a notably thankful tip of the head, he went off toward Maya’s room.

There he discovered that what he’d seen from outside hadn’t been the whole picture at all. Maya was at the window, yes, laid out across the seat and covering her eyes with her hands as though it would help her to focus, but then her father was in there, too, as was Riley, who had spent the night at the house. The two of them were calling out questions from the card stacks.

“Huckleberry?” Maya called, stopping at once like she’d caught his scent on the air, or recognized his step, felt his presence, something. When he confirmed it was him, she pried one hand away from her eyes and gave him a weak wave.

“Here, your turn,” Shawn got up, handing the cards to Lucas before walking out of the room.

“I… should go shower,” Riley stood and left as well, another stack of cards landing in Lucas’ hands. He looked at them for a moment before setting them on the bed with the rest and moving to crouch by the window seat, next to Maya’s head.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” he teased, and she scoffed, unable to hide a smile.

“Not sleeping, but I’ll hold on to the other part,” she declared, and he smiled back.

“No argument here,” he confirmed. She turned her head to look at him and he leaned in to kiss her. “How’s it going?”

“The Panic Train was right on time,” she replied, “Just came screaming down the tracks because the brakes were out. Crashed over the rail into a ravine, much fire, and all those poor passengers…”

“Hey, alright,” he stood, coaxing her feet up until he could sit at the window with her, resting her legs in his lap. “Can we pretend the train just… landed on a big… inflatable cushion, and no one died?”

“What about the fire?” she muttered.

“They were making dinner, crashing is hungry business,” he nodded confidently.

“S’mores…” she hummed, accepting his scenario before sitting up with a sigh, hair spooling out over her shoulder.

“Maybe I should have called you Rapunzel instead,” he considered aloud.

“The passengers could climb my hair to safety,” she nodded in agreement, pushing the train story well out of danger and on to firm ground. They were back on track. “I’m glad you’re here now.”

“Just now?” he asked, and she gave his arm a tap. “When do we leave?”

“About an hour,” she reported, looking at the clock by her bed. “Meeting the others out there. We decided we weren’t going to have any last-minute practices or anything.” He frowned, looking to the cards on her bed. “Didn’t say anything about last-hour practices,” she defended herself with a shrug. “But I’m stopping now. I need to just… breathe, and not let myself get caught up in my brain… again.”

“We can do that, _you_ can do that.”

So, they did that. Focusing on the preparation was one way like any other. Lucas stepped out of the room to let her get ready, snatching up the review cards before he did so, preventing her from getting caught up in those again once left to her own devices. At some point, instructed to turn and face the other way by the disembodied voice of Riley Matthews, he heard the other girl scurry from the bathroom to Maya’s room, followed by the sound of the door opening and shutting again once she’d been admitted within.

They had fifteen minutes to spare, once the girls were both ready, before they had to leave, and those were spent, the better not to allow Maya’s thoughts to board another train, at the hoop behind her house. When it was time to leave, there was still a sort of deep intake of breath, as they all thought the same thing… _Here we go…_

As their group came together, bit by bit, as they reached the school, it seemed he wasn’t the only one who’d been on duty to ease the Basket Cases’ minds. Nadine, Rebecca and Scott all looked like they were trying to keep themselves convinced today wouldn’t be… well, a train wreck.

When it came time for the team to go one way while their supporters went another, to find their seats, Lucas waited while Maya’s parents gave her last minute encouragements before he got to go up to her and take his turn. There was still just the tiniest of tremors in her eyes as she looked at him, but he met her with a fierce and unshakeable resolve, so she might use it to steady herself.

“Go get ‘em, Rapunzel,” he whispered to her with a smile, and she laughed, nodding. She kissed him, went to turn but then decided to kiss him a second time before finally letting out a breath and moving to join her team.

Even as they sat there, waiting for it all to start, he could finally stop and think about what would happen when this day was over. He didn’t doubt for a second that they _could_ win, but then he also didn’t let himself believe there was no chance they would lose, because it could happen, too. If they won, well that would be easy, they would all celebrate and it would be wonderful. If they lost… well, honestly, he didn’t know how it would go, because it all depended. If it was a crushing defeat, that would be how it felt. If they lost but did so after giving about as good as they got, well they would have a better chance of suffering the blow but growing from it just as fast. All he could know for now was that, however this thing ended, he was going to do whatever was needed of him, whether it was to cheer along, or to console, or to support the growth.

Lucas was glad to see there were indeed other signs being brandished around him, so he could present his own work with pride. And he was that, proud, of Maya, of the whole team of his friends. When it all started, finally, it was somewhat reminiscent of being out in the stands cheering the girls’ basketball team on. He was excited for them, and nervous, too, wanting to see how it would all turn out.

How it turned out was that, just as they’d discovered, leading to this whole bout of panicking, the opposing team was very good. This was _not_ their first time. But then, all the same, it wasn’t long before another thing became clear: the Basket Cases may have been new, but they were not to be dismissed. There was no clear winner here, the entire time, each team’s score riding the other’s, until the very end, when it came to a tiebreaker. When Maya stepped up for that last question, even from where he sat, Lucas could see… there was not a tremor in her, hadn’t been since maybe five minutes into this, really, but even so, he knew. Whatever happened next, she would be alright, they would all be alright.

They were more than alright. The Basket Cases won the day, and there would be no more tremors, not for her, not in this.

TO BE CONTINUED


	64. Her Jump Into Weeks

February came along, on the tail end of what was already a start of year which felt appropriate to the term. It was a start, a renewal, roads opening up before them, taking them to brand new places. One month in, they were all doing well enough, with school, and work… The travel fund had built up a bit more still, and it did seem now like every little step forward was an encouragement, telling them… Keep going.

For Maya, this year, right from the turn of it, had been and would continue to be about another new thing coming about, a big one. This would be the year of her little brother or sister, the year they came to be, and every new week that started, the excitement increased. She would follow along with her mother, how it grew, and developed… Even though there was only a little there for them to see yet, it was a fascinating little thing. She couldn’t wait until they were able to see more, feel more… She’d seen some of her friends’ mothers through pregnancies over the years, some aunts, or family friends, but it was all so different for it being her own mother. She could never have predicted how emotional it would all make her, to experience this, with her mother, with her father… This little child would be a bit of all of them mixed together.

She was hurrying through her room as quick as she could, picking up after herself. It wasn’t messy, exactly, not the way it might once have been, but there was the inevitable build up of little things here and there, and she needed to see to it all before Riley and Nadine showed up. They were having a sleepover.

Clothes had been put away, some off to laundry, some still wearable going back to hangers or drawers. Her school things were gathered again, stuck in her bag, the bag tucked under her desk. This school year was well on its way now, nearer to its end than its beginning. Maya was proud of herself for seeing how she hadn’t fallen back into that whole thing of stopping and thinking about who she had been and who she was now, and whether she would stumble back in some way. She hadn’t thought about it at all, maybe never would again. The confidence she had built up over the past few years was solid enough now, and it would bear her forward, no tumbling back.

The seat of her bay window showed the time she’d spent on it all that morning, planted in the middle of it. On one side, she picked up her sketchbook and pencil, looking at the page she’d just finished. Nadine’s sister, Marley, had asked for Maya to draw her something, which Maya had gladly set out to do. Now she could hand it over to the eldest Zhu girl so she could pass it on to its destination. The page was pulled from the book, which would be put away along with the pencil in the next moment, before being rolled up and having an elastic band wrapped around it. The roll was left there on the seat, for now.

The other item on the seat, which _would_ need putting away, was a large and heavy book. It had been Lucas’ gift to her for Valentine’s Day. He’d bought it at the museum shop, on the recommendation of the woman working there. Maya was familiar with her, too. Maribel was always so kind and indulging to her, easy to talk to as she sensed she loved to nurture this same passion they shared for art. He’d saved up for it, a second bit of his salary being set aside now, after the part set for the trip, and on the day, their second one spent together as a couple, he’d presented it to her. She’d been in awe of it ever since, taking her time with it, page to page, not wanting to rush through it.

For now, it would return to its space, in a small bookcase which had been added beneath her wall shelves. The bookmark sticking out of the top had also been a gift, he’d said, because he had a feeling it would come in handy with this one, and he was right.

With Nadine and Riley on their way, Maya found herself thinking about those old days, when she’d just barely come to Texas, and she and her friends had their very first sleepover. There had only been the six of them at the time, Nadine and her, and Lucas, Zay, Asher, and Dylan. The girls here in her room, the boys down in the basement… It had been a little while now since they’d had a sleepover, all of them, at least all of them, the girls _and_ the boys. She wasn’t sure if they’d gotten to the point where it wouldn’t really be something they did anymore. Were they too old now? Were there things getting in the way?

The dogs were scampering around her feet, and she startled out of her thoughts for a moment. Was she feeling a blush to her cheeks? For a moment she’d gone back to that Valentine’s Day, Lucas and her, lost in a kiss, in an embrace, in hands and… She recalled the conversation they’d had there, and maybe she knew exactly why the only sleepovers she’d had recently were with Riley, and Nadine, and Rebecca when she was able. It seemed, as time passed, the thoughts were harder and harder to dispel.

When she heard the doorbell, she took a breath and moved out of her room, nudging the topic back down to its hiding place. Now wasn’t the time, no, not at all. This was the time for her and the band.

TO BE CONTINUED


	65. Her Jump Into a Sleepover

When Maya opened the door, she found… no one? Frowning to herself, she looked down to find a pair of bags abandoned on her doorstep. Those were Riley and Nadine’s bags for sure, but then where were her friends?

Picking up the bags and bringing them inside, she was drawn back to her room by a chorus of barks from the dogs, and at once she understood where her friends had gotten off to, and that did not diminish the amusement and surprise she had when she walked up to find them stood there, outside the house still but framed up in the windows and posing like a couple of painted portraits. She dropped the bags and walked up to her side of the window as though walking through an exhibit and taking in the new acquisitions. What ended up breaking the gag was the moment Riley the painting noticed that the trio of dogs had stopped their barking, sat side by side with Maya, staring at them just as she did. Riley burst out laughing, and then it was done.

“Welcome to the gallery,” Maya greeted them after opening her window to let them in. “All works of art are welcome.”

The bags retrieved from the door were opened up so that Riley and Nadine could settle themselves in. As they did so, they recounted the idea for the gag, which had apparently been decided on at the very last moment, after they had already pressed the doorbell. So, they’d dropped their bags and taken off at a run, barely making it out of view by the time they’d heard the door being pulled open.

“I checked with Rebecca again, she said she’d do her best to try and make it here anyway, but she still couldn’t say for sure,” Nadine reported to Maya, who gave an understanding nod. Rebecca and her mothers, Tessa and Siobhan, had spent the vast majority of their free time in the last couple of weeks at the retirement home where Tessa Fitz’ mother lived. Rebecca’s grandmother had had a bad fall, and they’d been out there, helping her, keeping her company… She would have been told, by her mothers and her grandmother as well, to just go on and enjoy the sleepover, that they would be alright, but Rebecca still couldn’t bring herself to do it. Nadine had eventually shared the story of how, when her grandfather had been dying in the hospital, she hadn’t been there, and it had weighed heavily on her. Even though her grandmother would be just fine, given time to rest and heal, the memory just wouldn’t stop playing tricks on her. But she was trying her best.

“I remember, the first winter after we moved here, when my grandfather twisted his ankle, back in Philadelphia. I just wanted to be over there, too,” Riley recounted, and Maya and Nadine nodded, remembering it, too.

“If she does come, we will just have to make her feel glad she did, take some worries away,” Maya declared, and it was agreed.

“Speaking of faraway people,” Nadine piped in after a beat, “When are we calling?” Maya looked at the time.

“Not long now,” she smiled. It may have been just the three of them there, but officially, this sleepover was a party of four… five, if Rebecca came. Their fourth may have been miles and miles away in New York, but that wasn’t going to stop them from breaching that distance as best they could, through the power of technology.

“Maybe we should change before she calls!” Riley stood up. “And if we put the computer on the ground, it’ll be like we’re all sitting around her,” she gestured.

The plan was agreed upon, and so they got to work, changing out into PJs before relocating the computer screen, settling it as the focal point they settled their sleeping bags around before sitting on the ground to face it. It was a small bit of work, but it was efficient, and it did feel like they were creating a square, with the computer standing in for their dear Isadora…

As they waited for the call time that they’d set with her, the three girls went about doing what they’d gotten accustomed to do whenever they’d have to sit and wait. They shared ‘horror’ stories from their work at the diner and the movie theater. Today, Maya and Nadine were treated to Riley’s tale of a couple of boys from their school who’d tried to come in with so many of their own snacks lined in their clothes and their pockets, only to have it all rupture out as they tripped over their own feet and faceplanted, passing the concession stand. The highlight here, always, was seeing her re-enact the whole thing, with the most exaggeratedly expressive faces and gestures.

“Carlos made them clean it all up themselves, saying they could either pick it all up or be banned from coming to the theater again,” she went on in the end, the smirk on her face making Maya wish she could have been there to see it all. Carlos was the manager and a total softie, but he could turn on the stern face in a flash, if ever it was needed. Mostly, he would say, the face was reserved for sending people like those boys running for their mommies and daddies… and getting a laugh out of everyone else.

When the computer gave out the ringing to alert them to an incoming call, they realized they’d missed the call time by a couple of minutes, but as they put it through and found the waiting face of Isadora Smackle, she made no comment on it. She, like them, was ready for this sleepover, dressed for the occasion, as though she would be sharing her room with her friends off in Texas, too.

TO BE CONTINUED


	66. Her Jump Into New York

Smackle had had a similar idea as they’d done, they came to discover, when they saw the view from her camera. She had moved her computer, too, maybe not to create the impression that they were all sitting together, but rather to break the impression she was merely sat at her desk. The way she’d positioned the screen, they could see out the windows behind her, as though there was no room around her, only the city of New York. Maya had always loved the view from Smackle’s window, the times she’d gotten to visit her home. She was also in her PJs like them.

Maya, Riley and Nadine all greeted her at once, which seemed to startle her briefly before she held up her hand in a wave, smiling.

“Sorry we were a bit late,” Maya told her once the others had finished saying hello.

“It’s alright,” Smackle shrugged. “I was getting ready, and I thought you might be, too.”

“Do you have your movie picked?” Riley asked, holding up the stack the rest of them had assembled already. They had decided that, for this night, they would each pick one movie for the four of them to watch together.

“I… I did, I…” she looked down, and Maya could hear her shuffling boxes in her hands. Seeing Isadora Smackle struggle to make a choice like this, it felt like getting let into a whole other place. She was one of the most self-assured people Maya knew, except around her friends. Here, she was different, learning to open up, and that was the best they could do for her, as her friends, to let her do it. Maya still couldn’t entirely read her expressions, the way she could with the others, but what she sensed here was almost… shyness?

“What do you have, Isadora?” Maya asked her, and the girl looked back up. “Go on, show us,” she smiled with encouragement. Was it that she couldn’t decide? Or was letting them in on her choices making her feel awkward?

“I was never big on movies growing up, except these ones. These ones I could watch over and over again, especially if I was sick. They’re… kind of silly, I guess,” she shrugged, dismissive but invested.

“Silly’s good, we like silly, have you met us?” Nadine beamed, pointing to both Maya and Riley, bursting with silliness to prove it. The smile that began to creep up on Smackle’s face, timid but true, was absolutely wonderful to see.

“Our picks are kind of silly, too,” Riley pointed out. “We’re supposed to have fun, remember? After dinner we’ll have loads of snacks,” she revealed the loot she’d brought along, bought from the movie theater before she left the previous evening after her shift. “Did you get the package I sent you?”

“Yes, there was a lot,” she declared, holding up a box and showing its contents. She almost had as much as they did, all to herself. “I can’t eat all of this at once, do you know how much sugar there is in these?”

“A lot,” Nadine agreed, as she turned back to their own loot and started to rummage through it. She had seen something in Smackle’s box and evidently wanted to make sure they had some of it on their end, too. When she found it, she nodded to herself and set the bag back. “Always good to have reserves… for next time.”

“Next time,” Smackle repeated the words, as though she was testing them out, to see how they felt. They felt pretty good…

“Right, should we get started with the movies?” Maya asked the others, reaching for the boxes.

“Wait,” Smackle spoke up again. “Before we do, I wanted to talk about the band.”

“We haven’t really done all that much,” Nadine admitted with a shrug. “Not that we don’t want to, but with school, and work, and quiz bowl, and home… There hasn’t really been time for us to try and make it work, you know? But I still want to. I’ve been practicing my dad’s old drums.”

“Yeah, and I’ve been visiting Mrs. Lew next door,” Riley chimed in. “She used to be a piano teacher, and she’s been helping me. It’s been a while, but I did take lessons when I was little.” Maya snorted, recalling how that had all ended, but kept her mouth shut.

“We keep circling the subject, but we never actually follow through,” she was forced to point out. It was always the same sort of thing with the four of them. They would say they wanted to make it happen, for real this time, and then they would toy with the whole thing for a few days or weeks, but it would eventually cool down until they didn’t talk about it anymore, until the next time. Every time she saw the shirt Smackle had made for them, it would make her feel guilty, make her think one of these days she would actually make it happen. They all would. They would be TXNY.

“Well… maybe we will this time,” Smackle stated, a curious look in her eyes as she leaned over the keyboard in her lap. A few seconds later, a file was sent through to Maya’s computer, two files, actually. One audio, one text.

“What’s that?” Maya asked.

“Our first song,” Smackle declared, catching the trio’s attention.

“Our what now?” Nadine sat up.

“I wrote a song,” Smackle nodded, just as matter-of-factly. After a beat, seeing they all still looked sort of dumbstruck, she went on. “I’m over here, you guys are all over there. Whatever happens, I won’t be there to be a part of it. I wanted to contribute to the band. So… I wrote a song.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	67. Her Jump Into the Band

It was hard for any one of them not to sit there and show themselves _so_ taken by surprise by what Smackle had done, so as to not wound their friend’s feelings too much. Still, they kept a steady face, some maybe more cautiously than others.

How could they not be surprised though? Of all those among their group, who would have thought that Isadora Smackle would be the one to take on the task of song writing? Isadora, dear Isadora… They would defend her to the ends of the Earth, every last one of them, but then she was still her. Like any one other person, it did feel like there would be things that were just outside of her capabilities, no?

And they hadn’t even heard it yet, which left them with the very possible moment coming where they would have to deny their bandmate’s efforts without making it seem like they didn’t care. Maya frankly hoped it _would_ be good. She hoped she would be proven wrong.

“Was it… hard?” she asked after silence had held for a few seconds, hoping it would lead into Smackle explaining some more. Smackle considered this for a moment, as though they could hear her think ‘Hard? Was it?’

“I did some research, on music, and what would attract people’s attention, what might entertain them and make them want to listen to more songs from an artist. It was really interesting. But then I didn’t want it to be just some sort of cookie cutter, by the book sort of thing either. I wanted it to be representative of us, of the kind of sound that would really be like us. If it’s to be our first introduction to the world, then it has to be good, of course. I debated for a while whether to start with the music or the lyrics. Words did always come easily to me though, and that was where I started, and…” She stopped and turned her head, and they could vaguely hear what sounded like her mother’s voice. “Hold on, back in a minute.” She took off her headphones, got up and walked out past the computer and out of sight, leaving the trio in Texas on their own.

Both Riley and Nadine had looks on their faces which amounted to much of what Maya had been thinking. Much as they were aware that Smackle could return at any moment, it felt like they needed to use this moment to talk.

“What do we do?” Nadine whispered.

“It could be good,” Riley shrugged, trying to sound hopeful. Maya looked to the screen, to the two small icons showing the downloaded files, one of them no doubt a performance of the song in question, and the other either the lyrics or partitions or both…

“Yeah, but what if it’s not? What do we do then?” Nadine went on. “I mean, it’s not that it’s her. If any one of us came up like this, it would get my nerves all in twists. I want to be honest, but…”

“I know, same here,” Maya assured her. “We don’t know how it’ll be. We just have to wait until we do.” There was plenty of temptation to at least open the text file, and she was sure the others had been thinking about that, too.

“It had to be a big deal for her to even share it with us,” Riley pointed out, and Maya and Nadine both looked like they’d been thinking the same thing. Maya _had_ seen the nervousness in her before, had coaxed as best she could without forcing Smackle’s hand, before knowing what it was that even had her like that. But she _had_ told them about the song she’d written, because she trusted them, her friends… her bandmates. She’d done it for them, and Maya could only sympathize with the sentiment behind it. She remembered what it was like to be the one out on one side of the country while her friends were on the other. Smackle was part of the band, and like she’d said… she was trying to give her contribution.

“We’re going to listen to it,” Maya stated after a beat. They agreed. “We’re going to be open, and we’re going to be honest. That’s what she’ll want.” Again, they agreed.

“And if…” Riley started, no need to say the rest.

“Shh!” Nadine waved her arm at her, just as they heard Smackle’s footsteps coming from the computer’s speakers. Soon, she could be seen again, sitting in front of her own screen, letting out a breath as she settled back in, headphones coming on as she gave them a nod to say she was back.

“Sorry, my aunt was on the phone,” she explained, taking a moment to maybe recall where they’d left off before nodding to herself. The song. They’d been talking about the song… _her_ song, _their_ song… “Did you listen to it?”

“No, we… we were waiting for you,” Maya answered. Were they supposed to, or did she just think they would?

“Oh, okay, good,” Smackle nodded. Now Maya thought maybe they really were meant to listen to it back then, or at least that she’d wanted them to, just so she wouldn’t have to see their faces as they experienced it. She was probably just as worried that they wouldn’t like it, whether she’d say it or not. Now it was all four of them, sitting there with this box in between them like… Schrodinger’s song…

“Sing it for us?” Maya found herself requesting. Riley and Nadine looked at her for a moment, but then turned back to the screen and gave smiling nods, backing up the request.

“I could just play the file…” Smackle spoke, the nerves most evident now.

“You’re part of the band, Isadora. Sing for us, please?”

TO BE CONTINUED


	68. Her Jump Into Songs

In the seconds that followed her request, Maya was still not entirely sure Smackle wouldn’t just refuse her outright. Much as she wouldn’t fight her on it, she did feel somewhere in her head that her friend needed to do this, to take full ownership of her gift to them and sing it out for them, the first time they heard it. Somehow, she had decided for herself that this wouldn’t be anywhere near as awkward as they might expect it to be, had decided that Isadora Smackle would – as she had done so many times before – take them all by surprise. After all, that was sort of how she went about in life, in all Maya had seen of her. For all her quirks, she had it in her to show any and all who underestimated her that she was not who they thought she was.

Even so, as she watched the girl consider her options, she wondered if maybe this one time she had overshot. Maybe it was better that they just listen to the audio file, recorded in the privacy she did not have here and now. But then…

“Sure,” Smackle stood up and walked off screen for a few seconds, at which point Maya looked around to discover both Riley and Nadine were staring at her, as though to ask if she was sure about this. Maya gave each of them a firmly confident nod. Just watch, it said. Isadora Smackle was going to work her superpower.

When she returned, the girl held a guitar in her hands, and she sat back in front of the computer. Maya smiled, recalling how they had gone together, the two of them, to buy the instrument, when Smackle had decided it would be important for her to have it ‘moving forward with the band.’ It would force Maya to recognize that maybe, somehow, their lone member off in New York was the one of them most invested in the rise of TXNY. Maybe it was all that logical thinking hard at work… Many times, since that day where she’d acquired the guitar, her calls to Maya had involved showing her some other thing she’d learned to do with it. She was really good, which in itself did not surprise Maya. Smackle _would_ be the kind to break down the workings of the instrument that would allow her to master it, although she did have to wonder about the other part. It was one thing to know how to play it, but it was another to do actual music with it.

“This will be a slower version than the one I sent you,” she started out saying, and the girls sitting as her audience all nodded in understanding. Maya couldn’t say whether the other two were looking at her with caution or apprehension, but she knew for her part she would just present herself as the most encouraging, invested audience member. She would do well, her face said. Just you wait…

The trio watched as Smackle prepared herself, sweeping her hair out of the way, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, settling the guitar across herself and gripping it properly, then taking a moment as though bringing the notes into the forefront of her mind, the lyrics along with them. One breath in, she was ready. Everyone was quiet, even the dogs sat around Maya, Nadine, and Riley. Finally, Isadora Smackle began to play her song.

Maya didn’t know when she’d closed her eyes, but when the first notes rang from her computer’s speakers, her eyes had already shut out everything else. And the notes she heard, building together as they did, created their own world. She suddenly felt a smile rise on her face; so far so good.

Isadora’s voice joined the guitar now, and much as Maya had heard her sing before, now and then, she didn’t know that she’d ever heard it sound this way, so… connected. The words had come from her, from her mind, and maybe for that, Maya could feel her curious little friend’s spirit in them. There was emotion here like she’d never felt come from the girl before, to the point where, at some point, she just had to open her eyes and break the experience she’d been having, just so she could see for herself that this was well and truly her summer roommate, singing so beautifully for them. And of course, it was… Hadn’t she told them it would be like this?

Actually listening to the song, Maya could sort of call up how it would sound in the faster version she had recorded, though for her part she liked it very much this way. Nothing was stopping them from doing both, was it?

Because she could see it now, could feel it… their sound. This little piece of Isadora Smackle they would carry out into the world, as the TX contingent of their TXNY. They could really do this now, couldn’t they? They could be a band, once they just stopped putting it off and finally did something… and she’d done it for them. It was only the one song that was theirs so far, but she could just as well foresee others joining it, until they had something substantial to present to people, something unique to them.

When Smackle finished her song, there was a moment where she kind of breathed to herself, and Maya could see exactly what she’d hoped to see. Her friend was proud of what she’d just done, as well she should be. Now, all she had to do was turn her eyes up to see what the rest of them had thought of what she’d created and shared with them.

TO BE CONTINUED


	69. Her Jump Into Music

Maya didn’t know how she’d gotten it in her head that she stood as Smackle’s sole protector in all this, as though the others wouldn’t care for her as much as she did, when of course they did. But even as the girl off in New York was bracing to look up and face the three of them again after having just finished singing the song she’d written for their band, Maya had to look to Riley and Nadine each in turn. She had to see for herself that all would be well once Smackle looked at them. What if they hadn’t liked it?

They both looked… well, gobsmacked seemed like as good of a word as any. Nadine looked sort of the way she’d done once, after getting stuck on an algebra problem for a solid hour, only to have Asher point out the solution, which suddenly seemed so evident that she felt as though she should have come up with it… well, an hour before. She’d been so sure of one thing, and when it had turned out to be another… That was more or less what had happened here, too. She’d been so sure this would be a disaster, and it had been anything but. And as the thought had time to settle over her, it manifested itself, finally, into a smile of joyful amazement.

Riley had tears in her eyes, and Maya didn’t think the smile on her face could be pried away with anything short of a crowbar… or dynamite. Really it felt like she was the one who stood at the head of the Isadora Smackle protection squad. The girl, along with Farkle, had been there for her in the year following Maya’s departure from New York, and Maya knew very well how much that presence had meant to her best friend, and how much she’d missed the pair of them since moving over, no matter how happy she was to be here. Smackle’s not only writing them a song but writing them _this_ song was bringing back all those feelings now.

When Smackle looked up and saw the looks on each of their faces, she blinked in surprise. Whatever effect she’d expected to create in her friends, she had not quite accounted for this one, even if it was the most perfect one that she could have received.

“So… you liked it?” she asked.

They all began to speak at once, stopping again and looking between the three of them to decide who would speak first. Instead, the first ‘review’ came from somewhere behind them.

“Isadora, you wrote that?” Maya turned to find her mother standing just outside her room, her father just behind her. They must have been drawn in from the performance. “That was beautiful,” Katy told her, the small tremor in her voice which Maya recognized as her trying to keep it together and not start to cry, which had been a common occurrence lately, blamed easily on hormones as though she would have been that far off from such a showing before becoming pregnant. If anything, Maya half suspected her to use that as an excuse to let her emotions run amuck.

“Thanks,” Smackle replied, a shy smile on her face, as Shawn led Katy back off to whatever they’d been doing before coming in to listen.

“It really is,” Maya chimed in on her mother’s sentiment. “How long did it take you to write it?”

“Well, that version… about an hour,” Smackle replied.

“How many versions were there?” Nadine asked, chuckling.

“Eighty-six,” Smackle nodded, setting the trio bug-eyed again.

“Eighty…” Riley blinked.

“Six, eighty-six,” Smackle confirmed again. “All together, I started the process a month ago.” Now thinking back on their conversations over these past few weeks, it did sort of explain a shortness in her calls, like her mind was simply somewhere else. It must have been all she did, whenever she could. “The next ones shouldn’t take so long, I think I understand it better now,” she added.

“The next ones…” Nadine repeated.

“We can’t have just one song, can we?” Smackle pointed out.

“Probably not, no,” Maya smiled, and Smackle nodded.

“It’s probably not a good idea to try and get any performances slated at the moment, with the end of the school year not too far away, so my goal is for us to have a solid set by this summer. Then I’ll be in Austin with all of you, and I can be there to see your first show.” She said it so matter-of-factly, it seemed impossible to argue with her about whether or not this would be happening. She’d said it, and now it was truth. TXNY would make its great debut over the coming summer.

“See it? You have to be in it,” Maya demanded.

“But I won’t be there the rest of the time,” Smackle insisted. “It will only confuse things.”

“So what?” Riley shrugged. “You should be up there with us, you’re part of this.”

“We’d have nothing to show for ourselves without you,” Nadine agreed.

“We won’t go on without you,” Maya crossed her arms over her chest, in a gesture Smackle couldn’t misunderstand. “How many other chances are we going to get to do that?”

“You make a fair point,” Smackle had to agree here. “Alright then, I’ll perform with you.”

“I want to hear the other version,” Maya beamed, now that it was settled. Soon, the recorded version flooded the room, just as amazing as the one they’d been presented a few minutes before. They could just see it now, the four of them on stage, singing their very first song as a band. In their minds, it was all up to them, and they would be surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of people there to listen to them, to watch them, and to cheer them on. Someday, who knew…

TO BE CONTINUED


	70. Her Jump Into Friendship

After deviating from their original plans for the night, when Smackle had revealed the existence of the song and then went on to perform it for them, they had finally gotten around to putting in their first movie, Nadine’s pick. Maya had shared her screen with Smackle, so all of them could be watching together. As they’d already experienced before, any time they would all come together to watch something, there had been a lot of talking over whatever was on screen, questions and comments which often went so far along that they would end up having to rewind a while in order to get back into the movie.

By the time they’d finished that first movie though, it became clear none of the trio in Austin was able to focus near as much as they would have liked. They were all still thinking about the song, their thoughts of the band and its potential once again lighting a flame beneath them. They couldn’t just pretend like they didn’t all want to see how it would sound, with all of them together.

Maya looked at the others sitting with her as the credits rolled on the first movie, and she could see it on their faces. So, she said it.

“You guys want to sing the…”

“Yeah!” Riley cut in a bit louder than intended.

“Definitely,” Nadine spoke at the same time.

“Wait, what’s happening?” Smackle asked.

“What’s happening is we would like to sing the song along with you,” Maya explained. “Like we would if we were on stage, you know?”

“If we were on stage, we would have instruments,” Smackle pointed out.

“Yeah, but don’t you have an instrumental version of the track?” Maya asked, and after a beat, the other girl simply nodded and leaned over her keyboard once again. A few moments later, a new file was transferred to Maya.

“In the lyric file, I assigned parts according to each of our voices, where they might be best on their own or combined. But we can make changes,” Smackle told them.

“Let’s just do it your way first,” Nadine suggested, and they agreed.

After running through it all for a little bit, they made what Maya imagined as being their band’s sort of… maiden voyage, whatever they might call it. For the first time they were not singing all of them together, but they were doing so with a song that was all their own. It couldn’t have been more thrilling if they’d tried. It felt like the sort of thing they would look back on, years from now, sharing the story with some journalist or another… If it ever became that the band went big, which seemed both thrilling and ridiculous. Was that really where they wanted to head, or were they just having fun? This wasn’t a conversation any of them needed to have, not now. This was only their beginning.

“Too bad the guys aren’t here, we could have had an audience,” Riley declared.

“What about them?” Nadine indicated the dogs.

“What about _them_?” Maya turned her head and found her parents once again at the door. She hadn’t even heard them come; she just knew they’d be right there as soon as they’d heard the singing. She moved to go and turn the computer screen just enough so Smackle could see them. “I mean, sure, they’re my parents, they have to look happy, but I’d call that a good sign, yeah?”

“I think you know I’d tell you the truth,” Shawn insisted.

“Yeah, you would,” Maya admitted, laughing as the screen was moved back the way it had been before.

“Well, if you want, I could send them the recording I just made,” Smackle pointed to her computer screen. The girls might have been surprised that she’d done that, but… no, this was just as she’d do it. So, the song was sent, to Lucas, and Zay, and Asher and Joey and Dylan, to Farkle, and to Scott, too, much to Riley’s hesitation. They sent it to Rebecca, too, as she had confirmed she wouldn’t be making it to the sleepover after all. The heading said _Meet TXNY… For your ears only._ Whether they would follow their directives was really anyone’s guess.

Their curiosities satisfied, they moved on to the second movie, which was Riley’s pick. Somewhere before the end of it, Maya’s parents poked their heads into the room to announce they were off to bed. The door to Maya’s room was shut, to muffle the sound of the movie and the conversation as it went on.

“Ready for the next one?” Nadine asked the others.

“Snacks,” Riley got up. “Need more snacks,” she declared, moving to pick out a new item from her loot, as though they hadn’t already gone through way too much.

“Did you manage to decide what movie you wanted for your pick yet?” Maya asked Smackle. The other girl appeared to have completely forgotten her earlier dilemma, and she looked down to what they guessed was her stack of choices. “Show me?” Maya requested with a smile. Sighing, Smackle held up the stack, fanning out the covers for her to see. She sort of vaguely recalled the DVD shelves at the Smackle home, but she didn’t recall seeing any of these, which might have meant they were new, but for the meaning they clearly held for the girl, Maya now suspected they had been kept hidden. And now they were being shown, to her friends. Nadine gasped, pointing at once to one of the movies.

“Wait, you have it? Oh, we have to watch that one, it’s so beautiful. You’ll love it, Maya, I just know you’ll end up curled over a sketchbook, drawing and drawing, after you watch this movie. You haven’t seen it yet, have you?”

“I… No, I haven’t,” Maya was intrigued now, and she looked to Riley to ask if she was alright with that pick, and she nodded gladly. “What do you say we swap out you and me and you go next?” Maya asked Smackle, and she agreed.

Nadine was right. Maya knew she was right, all of thirty seconds into the movie. It reminded her somehow of when she’d gone on vacation with her parents the previous summer, when they’d arrive to a new city and she would be bombarded with new things, wonderful things, that she just had to put to paper the feeling they inspired in her. The movie was just like that. The more of it she saw, she could practically feel her hand tremoring, wanting to get hold of a pencil. By the end of it, she was glad the last movie on their slate was her own, and that she’d seen it so many times she could have recited it along with the actors on screen. It meant that she could do just as Nadine had said she would. And now, knowing how much this movie meant to Smackle, she just knew she needed to send some of what she drew here over to her.

They really should have been exhausted out by the time the fourth and last of their movies came to an end. It was well into the night now, but they were filled with energy, with giddiness over a song, over the movies, over… well, lots and lots of sugar. They settled into their beds, their sleeping bags, talking about this and that, school, and work, and the trip, and the guys…

They’d been receiving and responding to glowing reviews from the rest of their group. The guys had loved it, and Rebecca, too. When Riley had gotten a response from Scott, she’d done her very best not to be too loud about it, remembering there were people sleeping very nearby, but her cheeks maintained a pink color well into the point where they’d turned off the lights. Maya had particularly appreciated the reaction video Dylan had sent them, and then Lucas… He had sent one message on to the other three, but to her he had sent a different message, too, just for her.

Finally, at… well, they didn’t bother to look at the clock, but they wouldn’t have been surprised if they had seen the sun start to rise in the distance, especially on the screen showing Smackle in New York… they had started to turn in for some well needed sleep. One by one, their voices in the low light of Maya’s room would fade away until the others knew someone else had fallen asleep, and then another, and then another… Maya went into sleep that night, dreaming of movies and sketches, of friends and a song which would follow them all through their years, like a marker of who they had been, at this time in their lives and in their friendship… bandship…

TO BE CONTINUED


	71. His Interest in the Music

The weeks which saw February turn to March were soon populated by more songs added to the TXNY repertoire. Two of them, actually, added to the first, although the way Maya had it, there would soon be a fourth added as well. As she’d told him, following the success of her first achievement, Smackle had been hard at work, churning out new pieces born out of small ideas she’d had while working on the first. She knew how to do it now, and she wanted to do more and more. Her bandmates were more than happy to discover what she would come up with, and truly, so did the rest of them.

It had been their own little secret, shared only within their circle, the constant instruction following each recording sent through to their friends: For your ears only. It wasn’t that the girls didn’t want to have their music out there, obviously they did, in the long run, but for now it was only theirs, and the rest of them would respect that, co-conspirators to the rise of TXNY…

And Maya, she was so happy these days, with the progress of her sibling’s coming, with the quiz bowl team, and with the new songs, of course. She was getting more and more knowledgeable about pregnancies and the growth of the baby inside her mother. It could be a little startling, especially when having these talks while out and about, people catching on to the conversation out of context and giving them odd looks, which he suspected Maya loved to see.

The Basket Cases had their second match, and Lucas had been glad to see this time around there wasn’t so much panicking happening among the four of them, and it showed on the day of the face off itself. They won this one, too, their second win, and they had celebrated as was due.

And then the songs, of course the songs. Lucas had them, and he would listen to them, oh… more times than he could say. There was something about having them there, mixed within the rest of his music, as though the band was just one more he had come across, and liked, and wanted to listen to whenever he could. The days where he worked at the museum, for instance, he’d be out there in the morning, before opening hours, and he would walk around, sort of running through the whole sequence, as though he didn’t know it well by heart now. The quiet of the empty museum would be filled by the voices of his friends, of Nadine Zhu, and Riley Matthews, and Isadora Smackle… and Maya Hart.

He couldn’t pretend as though he didn’t get a particular jolt when he could pick out her voice, or when it came solo… It was like she was right there with him, and he could feel the emotions she was attempting to convey in song.

She was still teasing him from time to time, about the one day where he’d been doing just that, walking through the museum, headphones on, that small playlist of three songs on repeat, and then he’d turned around to find out she really was there, and he’d let out a sound like a yelp, surprised as he’d been. She had laughed so much, though she’d also tried to keep it down because of where they were standing, even though there was no one around them to complain. She had explained how she had the morning off and so had decided to drop in and see him. At this point, the people at the museum would just let her walk on in as though she worked there, too.

She had been so happy to learn what he’d been doing before she’d startled him. He was sure she would have started singing along right then and there if not for the fact that they were standing in the middle of the museum and, again, she had so much respect for the place. But then she’d done the next best thing, and as far as he was concerned maybe even better.

She’d reached for the headphones still around his neck and brought her ear up close enough to see which song he had on at the moment and which part, and then she had started to sing along, so very low, just enough so he could hear her. It had made him smile, forgetting the bit where she’d startled him, instead standing there as he was, keeping in place so that she could do the same, standing right up near him to let the music stay with them, in that small sort of bubble, undisturbed and surrounded with art.

He knew the four of them in the band didn’t intend on letting anyone outside the group hear their music until the summer to come. Still, a part of him had been wanting to suggest the fact that they might find a way to get the talk going early somehow, so that by the time summer rolled around… people would want to know who TXNY were. But, for now, he figured it was up to them to decide, and maybe they would come to that conclusion on their own.

And then of course he had his own new activity keeping him busy and entertained. He’d been a part of Farkle’s group for a few weeks now, and it was a whole new thing for him, but oh how it had been interesting, right from the start…

TO BE CONTINUED


	72. His Interest in New Things

For the past few weeks he’d been the sixth and newest member of Farkle’s roleplaying team. After all this time he had come to find his groove in the whole thing, but he still remembered how it had gone in the beginning, which was to say… Well, it wasn’t as though it had been chaos, but it _had_ felt as though he had gotten in way over his head right there at the start.

Before his really starting out, minding the fact that five out of six members were out in New York and able to interact in the day to day while he was out here in Texas, Farkle had set things up so Lucas could have a chat with the rest of the team, the three he didn’t know as much especially. It was weird, but he was almost nervous? It was because of something Zay had said at lunch earlier that day. What if they didn’t want him on their team? He hadn’t exactly come by it out of some existing interest, had he?

He’d sat there talking with Farkle and Smackle for a while before the first of them had been connected into the call. He, like Farkle and Smackle, like the others to come, was an ex-Einstein student who had ditched the uniform in high school. It had been the thing to bring them together, that and the interest in roleplay.

His name was Fred, and Lucas knew he had remembered him right. The best he could describe it was to say that, if you heard his voice alone, or only saw his picture, you would never match the two. He had the build of an athlete, the kind you wouldn’t want to see charging toward you, but the soft-spoken mannerisms of a mousy librarian. It opened so many questions, though Lucas wouldn’t ask them, not now at least, not when they barely knew each other save for one encounter over two years ago.

“Farkle told us all about you,” Fred spoke, with a calm smile that could easily put them all in a lull. “We’re happy to have you.”

“Yeah?” Lucas had asked.

“Of course,” Smackle had nodded, just as the second of the trio rang in. This one was Kenny, who at sixteen years old still didn’t look any more than twelve, even by his own account. Lucas remembered now, when Farkle had first met Zay, how he’d claimed he reminded him a lot of ‘this kid Kenny at school.’ And Lucas could see it. Sure, Zay was tall and lean, while Kenny was… well, just lean. There was definitely something to his face that could have put the two boys as cousins, something, but there the comparisons ended, most of all when he got to talking, at which point the similarities shifted, of all things, from Zay to one Riley Matthews.

“Welcome to the team, Lucas!” Kenny spoke almost as soon as his face appeared on the screen and he spotted him there, on the screen. Lucas almost startled. “How is it living in Texas? I’ve never been there.”

“Thanks,” he had to smile, “And it’s good.”

When the last call had come, which was to herald the arrival of their last member and the only other girl, Charlotte, they were greeted by not one but two faces. Charlotte herself, Lucas had also remembered right. The mass of red curls had not diminished by any means, although it seemed she’d figured out how to tame them better in the last two years. The freckles seemed to either have receded or have been remembered more numerous than they’d been. The one time he’d seen her, the best he could tell of what kind of person she was would have been to say that she was very much driven, no doubt to it, and as he would learn in the weeks to come, what Fred lacked in aggressive attitude, Charlotte had it in spades when she was set to a task.

There was another girl sitting with Charlotte. He didn’t know this one, though the others looked like they did, so he had to assume she went to school with the rest of them.

“So, you’re Maya’s boyfriend?” were the first words out of Charlotte, and it took Lucas a moment to look at her and give a nod. At once, Charlotte and the other girl looked to each other as though they’d been talking about this before they’d called over to the group’s chat. “I remember you from that time you guys all came to Einstein once. This is my cousin, Sarah. She used to go to school with Maya. Riley and Farkle, too.” The brunette, Sarah, gave a wave. Lucas did remember some mention of their old classmates, and he was sure he remembered the name. He’d have to tell Maya and Riley about seeing her there. If it wasn’t that this was supposed to be his introduction to Farkle’s team, he might have called the both of them over.

The first meeting had felt almost like an interview, as he was asked one question after another. He had answered them all diligently, learning little bits of things about the others at the same time. By the end of that call, he did feel like he could come to befriend these guys, and it gave him hope that it would all be easy going from them on. The actual start of his participating in the game had been a rude awakening for sure, but then he found ample support from his teammates that made navigating the new roads a bit easier. It made him appreciate this thing Farkle and Smackle had put together, and why they would want so much for it to thrive. The more Lucas became entwined with it all, the more he would wonder if he’d gotten himself into more trouble than he already was, wondered what he would do when the door back to basketball opened up in front of him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	73. His Interest in Brotherhood

The trick to getting through a call with Farkle uninterrupted was to make sure and wait that his mother was either out of the house or too occupied to come along and see what he was doing. Otherwise, she would see he was talking to their summer guest in New York and then she would take over the conversation, as though he’d been nothing more than the receptionist connecting the call between her and her imaginary second son. Not to be mistaken, he didn’t disapprove of his mother having this affection for the boy. After all, he did consider him like the brother he’d never had. But that was all the more reason then for him not to want to have his calls hijacked by his mother’s inquiries to Farkle’s life and wellbeing.

This time, he had nothing to worry about. His mother had just gone off to visit Katy Hart, bringing her some things she had prepared, claiming them as indispensable for an expectant mother. She would be there for a solid two hours. He had texted Maya, ‘warning’ her, giving her time to escape while she had the chance. He’d received a reply less than a minute later, containing a selfie of her crawling out her window.

Whether she’d end up making her way over to his house or anywhere else, he couldn’t say, but if she was going to come here, then he might as well get the call going as soon as possible. Farkle Minkus was on his screen in no time.

“Hey, Lucas,” he greeted him.

“How’s it going?” Lucas asked, noticing a look on his face that registered as pronounced frustration.

“It’s all imploding into chaos, chaos and drama, drama and shouting, shouting and silence, silence and…” his voice and his hands, gripping at empty air, rose and tightened with each increment, until expressing the rest with a release and a grunt. Lucas sat there, unsure what had just happened for a beat.

“What?” he asked, because what else was he supposed to say?

“Love triangles…” Farkle declared, with nothing short of disdain. “I didn’t think they actually existed outside of books and television, but now I’m trapped in the middle of one.”

“You?” Lucas remained completely on the side of not knowing what was happening. Finally, Farkle actually explained the situation in words he could understand.

He had not noticed any signs of it all during their all playing together, and Farkle had not seen it coming either, by the sound of it, even seeing the three of them on a near daily basis. Whether they knew it or not, something had been brewing, for a while now, simmering right under the surface, until finally, in one incident, it had all spewed out in a fiery mess. Farkle wasn’t even sure what had triggered it, but the revelations that came out as a result could not be disputed.

Fred liked Charlotte, but Charlotte didn’t like him back that way. And _she_ liked Kenny, but he didn’t like her that way either. And _he_ liked Fred, but… Well, it was easy to see where it would go from there. Lucas could imagine it now, each of those three pining after the one to their right, when the one to their left was pining after them and could see all too well where the other’s gaze really fell. And on and on it would have gone, gaining speed and momentum, until… crash…

“And now none of them are talking to each other, and I don’t know what to do anymore,” Farkle finished with a sigh.

“Just give them time,” Lucas shrugged. “Let it blow over for a while, maybe they’ll come to their senses.”

“And if they don’t?” Farkle asked, unable to just accept it could be so simple.

“Then… we try and talk to them. They’re all friends, aren’t they? There has to be a way, and we’ll find it, I promise,” Lucas nodded. There was just the tiniest spark of optimism returning to him now, and the best Lucas could do was to focus on it and allow it to grow. “Did you get the new song?” Of course, he would have, as they always sent it to all of them at once. The fourth of Smackle’s songs for TXNY had just been sent out earlier that day. Lucas had already listened to it a dozen times on repeat, because he apparently had a total lack of self-control when it came to the girls’ band.

“I did,” Farkle confirmed. “I haven’t actually listened to it yet though. My brain’s been too full with the problem with Fred and Charlotte and Kenny,” he admitted with a frown.

“Why don’t you listen to it now? I think it might help you,” Lucas nodded confidently. Farkle hesitated for a beat, but then with a nod he set to pulling up the file on his phone, sticking his earbuds in and hitting play. Lucas couldn’t hear it, but looking at the other boy’s face, he got to see how his mood did seem to brighten bit by bit over those three minutes and twenty-eight seconds, or most of them anyway. Two minutes had gone by since he’d started the song when Lucas heard the doorbell from downstairs and he knew Maya _had_ come to his house as he’d thought she might.

Farkle was absorbed enough that he wouldn’t notice as Lucas dashed down to let Maya in, not saying a word and leading her back up in time to see the effect this new song had on their friend. As it went, he got to make two of his favorite people feel good in one go, and that was pretty good to him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	74. His Interest in Teams

From the beginning he had been wondering about what he would do, should the day ever come that basketball was back at his school. He had wondered, time and again, what choice he would make if it came to be that he had to make one, to choose between one team or another, basketball, or Farkle and the others. In a perfect world, he would simply say that he would do both. But then if he had to devote himself fully, which he always tried to do, to school, and basketball, and roleplaying, and his job, and the people in his life… He knew it would be one thing too many and then some part somewhere would suffer, or, worse yet, more than one part… if not all of them. So, as much as it pained him… and really, it did… he knew he would have to make a choice. He couldn’t give up people, or school, or his job, so then one of his activities would be the one to be sacrificed. He’d known it even before he’d gotten in with Farkle.

And Farkle knew it. Deep down, Lucas was sure his friend, his brother, not only knew it but fully expected him to choose basketball over them. If it wasn’t that it might put some false hope in him somewhere, Lucas would have pointed out this indecision spinning in his head. There was a chance he would give up that new team, yes… but there was a part of him that knew there was an equal chance that he wouldn’t, and it was most surprising.

Really, he hadn’t expected to get involved the way he did, to come to enjoy it the way he did. But he did, he really did.

Without a doubt, it had gotten better, in the last few days, since the whole Fred/Charlotte/Kenny triangle drama had fallen away. He’d had it right, too. Left to their own devices, the three of them had resolved their problems alone. Because whatever was going on in their heads, in their hearts… What it came down to was that they were friends, and as unfortunate as it could be for them to realize that the person they had feelings for did not feel them back, they knew there was nothing they could do to change it, and they preferred to keep their friends than to do anything that would jeopardize what they’d built together for years. It had been a bit complicated at first, but they’d surmounted all that in the end, and they had all been better off for it.

Even before that whole situation though, he had been really getting into the game and all it entailed. Oh, it was nothing like basketball or any other sport he’d ever played, not even a little, and that had been the thing that had kept him a bit off balance at first. It was a brand new world he was stepping into, but he was surrounded by friends, and new people who were slowly but surely becoming like friends to him as well. It got him to use his head in ways he hadn’t really done before, and he would get curious about what they would do next, what they _could_ do next.

He got to be a part of a team, and that was just something he had needed. He loved how it made him feel, to be part of something, with other people… At one time he had started to wonder why, and he couldn’t say how he had ended up reaching this one possible conclusion, but he had wondered if it went back to his suspension.

It was so far in the past now, and it felt like it, too, felt like a whole other lifetime ago that it had ended, instead of almost four years. But it had been a part of his life, and now it left him to wonder if the reason he was so intent on being part of something like this was because of those months where he’d felt like he wasn’t, where he’d been set aside for the things he’d done, regardless of the reasons he’d done them. Would it stay with him forever? It wasn’t even that much of a bad thing, was it? Wanting to be part of something, with other people? It was a good thing, and if it was a good thing that had come out of a bad thing, well… that was even better.

He’d had a few of those good things come out of that entire situation, too. His whole life would have been so different if he hadn’t been suspended, and he couldn’t say that it would have been better. His friends, as they were now… His brother off in New York… The girl he loved, here in Austin…

Feeling like he understood why he felt the way he did about wanting to be on a team was great and all, but it wasn’t solving the dilemma still hanging over his head. What would he do if basketball returned? What would he choose? He knew it wouldn’t be so much of an issue for him if the choice was easy. It would be easy if he felt more attached to one than the other, and he’d already come to see that he really enjoyed being part of Farkle’s team, just as he had the basketball team. Both different… both great… both hard to consider giving up.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to choose… Maybe, as horrible as it was to consider, especially for how it would affect a lot of his friends at school, they wouldn’t bring it all back before he was graduated and gone. That would be easy, would remove the choice, but he knew deep down it wouldn’t happen that way. It would come back, it _had_ to, and when it did… he’d have to decide.

TO BE CONTINUED


	75. His Interest in Returns

Monday morning came, a new week starting, as each one would, with his picking up Maya as he had done countless mornings. Mondays were always special though, just as Fridays were. One for starts, one for finishes. This one however would feel like a return to old times, by way of their original mode of transportation.

He had already texted her to let her know he would be a bit later than usual. At that point, he was still bargaining with his mother, to borrow _her_ car, while his own was in the shop. She couldn’t let it go, had errands to run. She _had_ offered to drive him, and Maya, and Riley off to school, but he had preferred to graciously decline.

Off he’d gone on his own, as he would have done before the driving, and the car. When he walked up her street, he saw Maya sitting out in front of her house long before she saw him. Soon as she did, he saw her do something like a double take, and he laughed as she took off at a dash to join him. Turning on his heel, she fell in step with him and they were off toward Riley’s.

“So… your car…”

“I was picking up something from Pappy Joe’s yesterday, and there was a hole in the road, I only saw it at the last second and then it was too late. So, it’s in the shop now and I probably won’t have it all week. It could have been worse, at least all I have to show for it is one squeezed finger,” he held up the digit in question. “No clue how it happened.”

“Aww, poor Huckleberry,” she crooned with a laugh, reaching for his hand. “Bet you’ll have forgotten all about it pretty soon.”

Another staple of Monday mornings, much as they tried not to dwell on the subject as though it was all they could think about, was the collective wondering whether or not there had been any developments with the basketball saga. It always felt as though a fresh week would be the right time, wouldn’t it? But week after week, there would be not a blip on the radar.

Well, that week in March, there had been a blip.

“Guys, hey, look!” Dylan came running up to the bench where Lucas sat with Maya, Riley, Zay, Nadine, and Rebecca. They followed Dylan’s pointing finger until they saw what he’d seen.

“Isn’t that Scott’s dad?” Riley asked.

“Scott’s, and Julianne’s, and Nathan’s, and every other of those,” Nadine confirmed. The man was walking up to the school along with someone else they recognized. They’d never expected to see her near their school again, after things had gone at the start of the year. It was the girls’ former coach. “Should we…” Nadine started to ask, but Maya was already running toward them, Riley quick on her heel. “Okay then,” Nadine hurried to follow the other two, while Lucas and the others watched them go.

From where he sat, Lucas saw the look on the woman’s face as she saw her former players – and Riley – coming her way, and he thought she might start to cry. She looked so happy to see them, though Mr. Shelby said something then and, after briefly squeezing each of the girls’ hands, the former coach followed the Shelby patriarch and left the trio to watch them go for a moment before returning to the bench.

“What did they say?” Zay asked.

“Nothing,” Maya shook her head. “They had to go in, they have an appointment,” she relayed what little there was to relay, a tentative tinge of hope in her smile.

It could have been nothing, but it didn’t feel like nothing, not to them, and as minutes went by, with more of their friends being spotted arriving at school for the day, with more of the old teams, it felt like they couldn’t run fast enough to stop them and tell them about the meeting that was happening. Each one had the same reaction, that quietly contained big-toe-testing-the-waters sort of hope, as they joined the growing mass of people on or around the bench.

Neither Scott nor Julianne had had any idea that this was even happening, their father had not said a word around them, and they had to wonder if they had let hope rise too soon. Had he kept them out of the loop because it was so distant of a chance that he hadn’t meant for them to know, especially if it didn’t pan out after all? Or maybe he just hadn’t wanted there to be too much of a scene. There could easily have been, with a good half of them standing out there wanting to go in and lend their voices and their support for the return of the teams, even if it wouldn’t be until the following fall.

But they stayed outside, until it was time for all of them to head to their respective classes. They had no way of knowing just how long the meeting had gone on for, when and – more importantly – how it had ended.

Lucas tried so much not to let it all distract him all morning, but sooner or later he would feel his thoughts dislodge from where they should have been to where they couldn’t help but travel. The whole day went on like nothing had changed, when to him, to the others, it felt like they _were_ changing, finally.

When the day ended, the best they could do, instead of rushing to the Shelby house like they wanted to, was to head home and wait for either Scott or Julianne to send on a message if they found out anything. When the hours had passed without that message coming, and it had been time for him to head to bed, he tried to tell himself it could mean one of many things, that Mr. Shelby hadn’t received an answer yet, or he couldn’t say, or wouldn’t… But to him it meant exactly what he didn’t want it to mean, that this day’s events had changed nothing, and they really had hoped for nothing. There’d be no knowing tonight.

TO BE CONTINUED


	76. His Interest in Summer

Friday after school, they all found themselves hanging out at the diner, as was getting to be custom. Maya, Asher, and Nadine were all working, and Lucas and the others would be crammed into their favorite booth. On this given Friday though, they had something more in mind to do than their usual fare of homework and weekend plans. Today was Farkle’s birthday.

It had been Riley’s idea for all of them to call him together when they had the chance, and they would have done it that morning except they hadn’t had the time before his classes would have started, so now here they were, waiting for a lull in diner activities so that the trio caught up with customers could hurry over and be part of things. While they waited, the group in the booth busied itself in creating a backdrop and hats out of the paper mats and some pages from their notebooks.

At last, the working three came dashing to the booth, where Riley and Dylan both took it upon themselves to plant paper hats on their heads, matching the ones the rest of them already wore. On the wall behind them, several pages had been joined together and stuck there with tape, a colorful wish of ‘Happy Birthday Farkle!’ with balloons and ticker tape all over. They might not have been able to be festive with him, but they could be festive enough that he’d feel it, all the way in New York.

Lucas would put in the call, and about as soon as Farkle’s face appeared on his phone’s screen, giving him barely a moment to process what he was seeing, there was a choral explosion of birthday song, drawing the attention of everyone else in the diner, even if the kids in the booth paid them no mind.

“Thanks, all of you,” was all Farkle could manage to say, still profoundly stunned in the best way.

“Happy birthday, Farkle, sorry I can’t stick around, but I’ll get back whenever I can, promise,” Maya leaned in closer to the phone before hurrying back to work. Asher and Nadine were soon gone as well, with the same promise.

“How was your day?” Riley asked.

“Normal, I mean I had school,” Farkle shrugged, though in a moment more Lucas could see him think of something else. “My father asked what I wanted to do this summer.” It was getting around that time, wasn’t it? “I mean on the one hand, if I stay here, I can keep working at my job, earn money for the trip, but if I do that then I’m here all summer.” ‘Not with you guys’ was easily read into the silence that followed.

“You can always get a summer job here,” Rebecca pointed out. “I don’t just mean in Austin, I mean here in the diner.” She turned to Joey, who nodded in confirmation. His and Asher’s uncle always did open up the chance for any of them, over the summer especially, their busiest time with all the kids out of school.

“Smackle, too,” Riley beamed at this.

“That could work,” Farkle seemed released by this offer, and Lucas was glad. The less time any of them spent believing they wouldn’t be together over the summer – when they wanted to be – the better. It wasn’t all set in stone yet, but they’d all been through this dance enough times to know it was as good as set. Farkle and Smackle’s parents were always happy to send them, and the parents here were always happy to receive them. Although now that he thought about it, Lucas realized there might be the tiniest of snags.

“Maya’s mom is due to have her baby in August, is Smackle staying with her or someone else this year?” he asked, looking around.

“She can stay with us,” Riley was quick to jump in. “So long as nothing happens like last time,” she frowned to herself, remembering the whole rush they’d been caught up in, needing to move everything over to Maya’s house at the last minute because of Auggie’s chicken pox.

“If she can’t stay with you, I’d be happy to have her over for the summer,” Rebecca pitched in.

As best as they tried not to get ahead of themselves, not ten minutes later both girls had texted a parent and gotten a reply. Riley’s had been a rollercoaster of emotions, by the look of it. As it turned out, her parents had been waiting to surprise her and Auggie. Their grandfather and grandmother, Mr. Matthews’ parents, were coming over for several weeks over the summer. They intended to be there for Shawn, for the arrival of the baby. So, it was at once a joyous news and a small disappointment that once again she would be unable to host Smackle. On the flipside, Rebecca’s mothers had been happy to open their home to a friend for the summer, so it all depended on what Smackle had to say now.

“Hey, did you get the package?” Zay asked Farkle, who nodded and leaned out of frame for a moment before returning with the box he’d had on the ground next to him. Inside that box were about a dozen small presents, from all of them in and around that booth and a few others, like the Matthews, and the Friars, and the Hunter-Harts. They watched as he unwrapped each of them one by one, calling Maya, Asher, and Nadine over whenever their own presents were about to be opened. The only thing missing would have been a cake, but they promised him they would have that over the summer… when they’d all be reunited.

TO BE CONTINUED


	77. His Interest in Growth

It was no use pretending as though the next few weeks wouldn’t involve some amount of working themselves down from the small hope they had built up the day Mr. Shelby and one of the former coaches had come down to their school. If any of them had any doubts as to whether or not they still felt as strongly as ever about getting the opportunity to be on one of those teams again, those doubts had been erased out of existence. The drive had not gone away from them, every last one, and remembering it would only serve to make Mr. Shelby’s failed attempt hurt more.

They didn’t know for sure what had gone done in that office, what the principal had said. Neither Scott nor Julianne had been able to get anything out of their father, but they lived with him, and they saw how he was after the meeting, and they couldn’t see it being good news. Already the three seniors in the former teams had been left to write off their getting back into it before the end of their high school days, but now it was the eight who would be seniors the following year, like Julianne, like Ray Choi, who felt the odds get worse and worse by the day.

Lucas wouldn’t say he was at peace with it all, but he had grown determined not to let himself get wound up again. It was out of his control, any of their control. It wasn’t as though they hadn’t tried, and now… now all they could do was wait, and, if they were ready to do it, hope for the best.

In the meantime, life still carried on.

The last days of March, though they carried the mark of that day of failed hope, had been as busy as the days and weeks preceding. School was getting to be more and more work as they got closer to the end of the year. Work was about the easiest part of his load, the information so deeply set into his memory now that he half expected to be awakened by his father one night because he’d been reciting some of it in his sleep. He hadn’t, not yet… not to his knowledge… Then Farkle’s group, his group, all of it had been more appreciated than ever after the failed meeting, an outlet which continued to make its importance felt more and more, tightening the potential headache he would have in choosing which activity, which team to remain a part of.

Life at home was good, and he almost didn’t feel his face heat up anymore whenever his mother would go off on a bragging bender to some friend or stranger about how her son excelled at the museum. Life with his friends was a bounty of happiness, all of them being just the people he would always, always want to be part of his days. And life with Maya… Life with Maya Hart in it made him feel the most… well, alive. His heart was never so bent on beating as when it was near her.

With the arrival of April, and the passing of it day to day, Lucas knew as well as any of the others that they would be entering into _that_ phase of the year. Much as they still had several weeks to go before it would be over, they would now far enough that they could see the finish line, small and distant but nonetheless visible. It would seem as though a tiny part of their mind had already departed off to sunnier pastures, to summer and freedom and everything else in between.

It was confirmed now that Smackle would be staying with Rebecca and her family during her stay in Austin that summer. They wondered if she would have any issues over this placement, considering Rebecca was one of the friends she knew the least and she had never been to her house or met her mothers. According to what he’d been hearing from Maya, from Farkle, from Riley and Nadine, Smackle seemed ready and intrigued at the prospect. She’d been talking more with Rebecca, too, who was all too happy to give her ‘the grand tour,’ carrying her phone around the house and showing her the rooms, introducing her to her mothers. They would speak with their incoming guest, answering her questions, which ranged from wanting to know what they did for a living to what kind of food they liked.

They had also confirmed with Asher’s uncle about getting both her and Farkle hired on for the duration of their stay. This had involved another video chat, where Mr. Garcia had been able to talk to the pair of them. Lucas suddenly envisioned many a visit to the diner for his mother, who had never shown any particular taste for what she called ‘diner fare,’ but would discover a new appreciation within her when it involved supporting her favorite visitor.

There was the regular summer round of activities, the ones which were now so engrained into what summer was for them that it would have felt strange not to keep it up. Farkle and Smackle coming over, that was one of them. There would be the camping trip with Pappy Joe, of course, and Lucas already knew his grandfather planned to take them all to a brand new place this time around, because according to him it was not right for them to become so set in their ways that they didn’t explore beyond. And then there would be the Babineaux family party, though here Lucas suspected things would not be entirely as they usually were. Good, sweet, GiGi, who was clawing her way toward one hundred, year to year, had been laid out for the last few weeks, and all Zay could say was that his parents, his aunts and uncles, all worried she might not make it to that day in the summer. He _also_ would say that GiGi herself was not ready to give up the ghost, and she would go when she said she was ready to go, which was not now.

Something that was _not_ part of their summer traditions but was nonetheless very much anticipated was the debut of TXNY. They hadn’t figured out just when it would happen, or where, or how, but it _would_ happen, and the one sure thing in all this was that, no matter how everybody else would react, their close friends would be a devoted and loud bunch of supporters. Their songbook now counted seven songs, and Lucas had been privy to a few conversations between the girls, as they tried to decide how many of those songs they would want to debut in that first performance, and whether they should keep some of the songs to be shared as time went on and people knew them more. None of that would matter very much if they didn’t actually decide the specifics of that first show though, so as April wore on, the girls continued to work through those details.

“Do _we_ get t-shirts, too?” he asked Maya, one afternoon as they hung out at his house. She was wearing her own TXNY t-shirt, the one Smackle had made her and the others in the band. She looked down at herself for a moment before turning to him with a smirk.

“Do you want one?”

“Yeah, I do,” he nodded firmly, and she laughed.

“That can be arranged,” she told him. “You can’t wear it until we have our big reveal,” she added with a flair.

“Why not? It would get people talking, wondering what it’s about,” Lucas pointed out, and Maya considered it.

“Huckleberry Friar, here I thought you were just a pretty face,” she teased, sidling up to him.

“Hey!” he faked hurt, and she ‘reassured’ him by putting her arms around him.

“A very, very pretty face,” she nodded, “And the rest isn’t bad either.”

“Yeah?” he asked, and she replied with a kiss. “Well, for what it’s worth, all of me is barely half of what you are.” She kissed him again for that one, lingering turning to fervor, and all talk and banter was forgotten in favor of warmth and nearness, of thrumming hearts and knowing hands and familiar lips.

TO BE CONTINUED


	78. Her Creation of Anticipation

The month of May had barely started that Maya learned with great excitement that they were to be visited by some very special guests. As though it wasn’t enough that for another summer they would have Farkle and Smackle coming to them, and that Riley’s grandparents were coming down to be present at the birth of her baby brother or sister, they were awaiting – in just a few hours’ time – the arrival of the two men who, via her parents’ marriage, had become her uncle and her sort of grandfather. Jack Hunter and Jonathan Turner were at this moment aboard a plane carrying them to Austin. They wouldn’t be here right up to August, only a few days, but as far as Maya knew, both of them strongly intended to make the trip at that time, too, barring anything that might prevent them from making it. She also had firm beliefs that a certain former teacher/principal would be finding his way down Texas way over the summer. Shawn Hunter had a lot of people in his life anxious to meet that little baby as much as the rest of them did.

The way her mother would carry about though, calling it a _little_ baby almost sounded a joke. She would reminisce about being pregnant the first time, with Maya, how it had all seemed so much easier, to the point where she would go around wondering what the other mothers-to-be had to complain about. It was in no one’s interest to suggest it might have to do with the fact that she’d been about seventeen years younger at the time. Maya had seen pictures of her mother back then, so many times before, and always it felt so strange to imagine how _she_ was in that growing little belly. First-time-mother Katy did have a smile in those pictures that would have been easily interpreted as the carefree attitude she now described, though at this point second-time-mother Katy felt like karma had held its tongue in extreme patience for all these years, and finally came to unleash its wrath upon her.

The ‘doom mood,’ as Maya and Shawn had been careful not to call it in Katy’s presence, was one that came and went, and they’d been doing their best to prevent it as much as alleviate it whenever it presented itself. Outside of its reach, there was a brightness in her mother’s face that Maya found magical. Something new and wonderful was coming, something she might not have expected to ever happen again, not until not too long ago, and it made Katy Hart look like she had so much faith in the world now that everyone around her could feel it, too. The conclusion it brought Maya to was that one mood could not exist without the other. Her mother had shuffled all the bad feelings, all the little nagging fears she might have had into the doom, leaving only joy on the flip side.

It was all moving so fast… It felt like it was an eternity away one second, and then she’d stop and look at her mother, showing in no uncertain terms now, and she would wonder where the months had gone from the day where she’d found out to this one. How had it been so long since that day in New York, sitting by the ice, when her mother had told her, since Christmas morning, and the shirts, and the look on her father’s face… Spring had sprung now, and summer was so close they could almost taste it. In another blink of an eye she’d be holding that tiny new human in her arms, wondering again where the time had gone but not caring the slightest bit.

“Come on, I know you’ve been making lists, I saw you,” she sat halfway down the basement steps, observing as her father looked through some boxes he’d stacked down there after moving in.

“Is that right?” he called back to her, not bothering to turn around or stop his search.

“It is,” Maya replied, matching his tone.

“Well first, that’s called spying,” he told her, earning a snort for his troubles, because when would he ever discourage that. “Second, you’ve waited this long, you can wait longer.”

“A girl has a right to know what her little brother or sister will be named. It’s kind of my duty to make sure they don’t get a weird name that will get it teased for the length of its education.”

“Good one,” Shawn laughed. “Still not telling you.” Maya sighed, getting up to go and see what he was up to.

“What are you looking for?” she asked, peering over his shoulder.

“Memories, I guess,” he shrugged, though his furrowed brow suggested he really wanted to find whatever he was looking for.

“For Jack and Turner,” she understood. “Anything in particular, or is it more like ‘you’ll know it when you see it?’”

“That one,” he kept on looking.

Her mother may have been going through emotional rollercoasters with this baby coming, but she wasn’t exactly riding solo. This was one of the biggest things to happen to her father, and the thoughts and the worries he might have had rolling through his head didn’t exactly show themselves as easily as Katy’s, but Maya saw it well, just as her mother did, and Riley’s parents, and everyone else of importance in Shawn Hunter’s life. There was about to be a person in the world, with his DNA, with his influence in its life right from the start, and as much as he could try and prepare himself for that, it was a giant chasm of unknown, so how could that not be terrifying?

“You’ll find it,” Maya assured him, remaining at his side for what assistance she could provide. He gave her a smile, eyes full of thanks, and he kept on looking.

TO BE CONTINUED


	79. Her Creation of Revelation

Maybe in hindsight she would think of all the little moments since before their guests’ arrival and realize the secret was there for her to find all along.

Shawn had gone to pick them up at the airport, and much as Maya had wanted to go with him, her mother had needed her help back home, and so she’d stayed, all the while with her ear tuned to the sound of a car approaching, even when her father had only just departed and couldn’t possibly have been back already. She couldn’t help it. Having the two of them here felt like such a big thing… family visiting… That had so not been part of her reality, all her life, that now that it was, she just… She wanted to take it all in and really bask in it, as silly as it might have been.

But then finally, after what might have been the five hundredth time she had looked to the nearest window, it had been the real deal, Shawn’s car coming along and the clear appearance of there being three people inside.

“Mom, they’re here!” she called, and her mother startled.

“Right here, baby girl,” Katy pressed a hand to her daughter’s shoulder, pointing out she was close enough for indoor voices.

“Sorry,” Maya beamed before dashing off to greet their guests, the dogs trailing behind her, led by her sudden departure. It turned into a mess of greetings, and hugs, and small dogs jockeying for attention at the same time, before finally they were all of them inside the house.

Seeing the three men, who had known each other so long, who occupied such important places in one another’s lives, and how happy they were to be there, together, and with her mother… Maya couldn’t help but think how it was so easy to bind the baby and her mother as a single entity so long as one was within the other. But to see Shawn with his brother, with the man who’d become like a father to him, that baby had never felt so much a part of him, too, as it did then. They were so happy for him, she would find it very hard not to tease her father to see how long it would be before he got all misty eyed.

They’d brought presents, again in the event that they might not be there for the birth. Jack had explained how he had gone into a store, with the very basic plan of buying a couple of things, one piece of clothing, maybe a stuffed animal… The salesgirl had been very helpful, according to him. Too helpful, according to Maya, though she kept her mouth shut, watching with wide eyes along with her parents as he presented them with a vast assortment of items. Jack also explained these would be joined by a package he’d be shipping as soon as one last thing arrived. He looked so happy to have given his brother and his wife these gifts, and they could only thank him.

“Well, here, it’s just the one thing,” Turner had then handed his own gift to Shawn and Katy, “Julia’s been going at it non-stop so it’d be ready before I flew out here.”

Inside the wrapped box was a knitted blanket, which Katy spread out before herself for them to see. Maya could tell before ever touching it that it would probably be just as soft and cuddly as could be. And looking at her parents, they both looked so touched… touched and something else, like one shared thought passing between the two of them at the same time, though while her father was able to keep it from expressing itself any further, her mother might have been too caught up in the moment to rein herself in, giving voice to it.

“Thanks so much, John, it’s beautiful,” she gave the man a touched smile before turning to Shawn. “They can share it, yeah?”

“I had no idea Julia could knit like this,” Shawn spoke up almost too quick, but their guests had not caught on, and Turner went about telling them the long history of the blanket’s making.

Surely it was jet lag that had those two missing it completely, yeah? Maya didn’t hear a word of the teacher’s tale as she sat there, pausing her previous foraging through the load of presents Jack Hunter had brought along. At first even she hadn’t grasped it, foolishly thinking to herself that her mother was under the impression she would be in need of sharing the blanket Julia Turner had made for her unborn sibling, and then she realized her mother had simply slipped, said something truthful when – going off the look on her father’s face, and how he stared at her like she was slipping toward realization – she was meant to be quiet a little while longer.

There’d be plenty of time for her to apologize profusely for busting the surprise before they got to do it, but for now, it came out of her with no possibility to keep it in. She looked at her mother now, thinking about the doom mood and seeing it as something else now… subterfuge. Of course, it was different now, and it wasn’t because of her age.

“Twins?” she blurted out the moment it all came together in her head. Jack and Turner looked back at her, then back to her parents, who were looking at her, then to each other, then to their guests. There was a moment of their all sitting there, waiting for confirmation or denial, but then there was no point keeping it in anymore, so they both nodded, and there was enough rejoicing for the lost surprise to be forgotten, much as everyone in the room was sworn to secrecy – for now. The only one who would be allowed into the secret with them would be Julia Turner, as Jonathan knew she would not leave those babies to have to share, and another blanket would have to be knitted before August.

TO BE CONTINUED


	80. Her Creation of Dreams

Sleeping on those nights where something big was coming the next day was always the hardest for her. Getting her mind to slow down enough to slide into relaxing and slumber was just out of the realm of possibilities, and so she would lie there in her bed, staring at the walls, staring at the ceiling after a while because the walls were too full of stimulation for her to settle down. That was how it felt, the night of the day where she found out she was to have not just one but two siblings in a matter of months. She wasn’t going to be this sleepless and anxious until August, was she? No, no… this was just the shock.

With the cat out of the bag, conversation with their guests had involved a lot of her parents sharing what they’d been keeping secret all this time, from the day they’d learned they were having two babies instead of one. The way her mother had it, Shawn had gone a bit catatonic for a minute there in the doctor’s office, leaving her oh so close to smacking him on the cheek so he would snap out of it. Maya could imagine them out there, could see her mother needing so much to know that he wasn’t freaking out. But then once the initial shock had worn off, and they’d sat there together, they’d just found their happiness had gone and grown, shifting to make space for the second baby they hadn’t known was there, making up time for that period of ignorance. They’d always foreseen having more than one, they said, maybe just not all at once. But they would adjust. They had each other, and they had Maya, and all would be fine. It would be better than fine, it would be their family… their big, wonderful family.

Three kids, two adults, three dogs, in one little house…

Maya sat up in her bed, wondering now… Would it mean they’d have to move? It wasn’t as though she wouldn’t have to do it eventually, she knew. In a couple of years, she’d be off to college, and likely moving out to her own place as she progressed there. But no matter where she went, the little house was still going to be there, with her parents and her sibling… siblings in there. A home to come back to.

The baby – back when there had only been the one, as far as they knew – was going to be staying in her parents’ room for the first little while, and after that Maya had been more than happy at the thought of sharing her own room. Could they all share this room, all three of them? And what happened if her parents had another baby after that… What if they had more than one more? Her little house felt so very small now. It used to be it felt so big to her, when they’d first moved here. Back then, the fact that it was little only referred to its being sort of quaint, comfortable…

The home situation was barely a wrinkle to her though because, no mistake, she was thrilled. Twins! Two little brothers or sisters, that was just beyond her wildest dreams. Earlier, when it had been time for dinner, they’d all decided to keep things simple and get some take-out, which Maya had accompanied Shawn to go and get while her mother was with their guests. And in the car, Maya had made it her mission to suss out any other secrets they might have been holding out on her, one big one in particular.

“You know what they are, don’t you?” she asked, and her father had the presence of mind not to let his face betray anything.

“We decided to wait and be surprised,” he told her. She squinted.

“You did not. You know, Shawn Hunter, now spill. Big sister privileges, let’s go.”

“Dad privileges, no,” he returned, and the smirk on his face was just good enough she almost wanted to let him have it and stop pushing… almost.

“Give me something, you’re not fooling anyone here, I know you know something. Boys? Girls? Boy _and_ girl?” she inquired. He sighed.

“Alright, I’ll give you one thing, _one_ ,” he held up his finger as ‘proof.’

“Yes, good, hit me,” she sat up in anticipation.

“I’m not telling you what they are, because I really don’t know, okay?” She begrudgingly agreed, because she could tell he was telling the truth now. “I _can_ say that, whichever one they are, they’re both the same.”

So that was one thing. She would either have two little brothers or two little sisters. Did she have a preference? Maybe, deep down, but she would never say, wouldn’t want to give power to a wish like that, because what if it ended up the other way around? She dismissed the thought with something of a snort, knowing Mr. Matthews would be campaigning even more for one of those boys to be named after him now. If they were boys, of course, and if they weren’t, well Maya had already heard him claim that Cora was a lovely name, though her parents would always pretend like they hadn’t heard him.

Brothers… sisters… brothers… sisters… Maya looked around her room, sort of resigned to her sleeplessness, but then that might not have been a bad thing, because all of a sudden she had an idea, and the more she sat there thinking about it, the more she knew it was not just a good idea, it was the right one. After she’d realized that, her brain seemed satisfied. She was asleep not two minutes later, dreaming of little siblings, whatever they might end up being.

TO BE CONTINUED


	81. Her Creation of Secrets

The next morning, the Hunter-Harts and their guests were off to breakfast with the Matthews at Ma Maggie’s. Maya had been roped in with Jack and Mr. Turner when Katy had told them to keep the whole twin thing a secret, although she couldn’t help but point out to her mother that sooner or later she would have to tell them all, especially with things like her baby shower coming closer.

“Plus, you know, they’ll be curious when they see you have twice as much stuff to get.”

So that was how this breakfast had become the means for Katy and Shawn to tell some of their closest friends about their surprise twin. If Maya had been in stitches over their reaction to there being just the one baby on the way, the addition of a second one made sure that everyone inside Ma Maggie’s knew that the parents-to-be were having twins. If nothing else, it had gotten them a small stack of free pancake breakfast coupons from their smiling waitress.

After breakfast, Maya was due for a shift at the diner, so she’d had to leave her parents and their guests, but that was alright. Time to herself, even if it was in the midst of her tending to customers, would give her a chance to explore the idea she’d started to have the night before. She was committed to it now, this little project of hers, but it would require plenty of thinking before it could be put into action.

Then, at lunch time, she’d looked up at one time to find a booth in her section was now occupied by Katy, and Shawn, and Jack, and Turner, each of them giving her their variation on the classic ‘ha ha, we came to watch you at work’ smile.

“Don’t we have food at home?” Maya greeted them with a squint and a smile as she approached them.

“Not this food,” her father countered with his own smile, teasing as it was. “And not delivered by my favorite waitress.”

“Pretty sure that’s her,” Maya nodded to her mother.

“Oh, but I haven’t been a waitress, not since before we even met,” her mother was happy to pipe in.

“So, what do you recommend?” her father returned to his merry little game, opening his menu. She’d point out how she brought food home from the diner so often he had probably tried everything on the menu, but instead she decided to play along. The more chances he gave her to do something that would prevent them catching on to her secret project…

Her family booth was tended to, and when they had all finished, leaving her a very generous tip to the point of being too generous, they told her how they were going off to shop for a few things. Now that people knew about the twins, it had really gotten them thinking maybe they needed to get a move on with some things after all, so on that they thanked Maya for nudging them into making the reveal.

Once they were gone, once she knew what they would be out doing, it helped line up a few things for her and her project, too. It told her what she needed to do and, more to the point, _when_ she needed to do it. It also told her she would need help, a lot of help… a lot of secret help.

First, she approached Asher and Nadine. That was easy; they were right there. When she told them what she wanted to do and why, they both hugged her (yay, twins!) and then agreed to help with all they could. At the same time, Nadine texted Zay and told him to come down to the diner when he could, just as Asher did so with his brother, and Maya did the same with Lucas. Zay and Joey came before long. Lucas was working at the museum that afternoon, and Maya knew he couldn’t come over right away, but he would be coming along just as soon as he was out of there.

To Zay and Joey, in the meantime, they had given the mission to be messengers, out to the rest of them. Joey was dispatched to the movie theater, to find Riley, Dylan, and Rebecca, while Zay was sent off to wrangle as many of the old basketball team members as he could, both of them as discreet as possible. This was to be a secret.

As the day carried on, Maya received several messages back on her phone. Joey had done his part, and the three at the movie theater were on board. Meanwhile, Zay was zooming from one place to another, sending her back status updates. He had Julianne and Scott locked in, he had Ray Choi, he had Sofia and Anna, and Blake and Stevie and Tommy, and so on, and so forth, until she realized she now had twenty-four participants, herself included, to this project which now seemed more like a mission. This could make it all that much easier, like it could turn into chaos, but she chose to see it as the best possible outcome. They could pull this off, so long as everyone understood the rules.

By the time Lucas had finished at the museum and had come to see her, she was so anxious for the big moment to come, even if it wouldn’t for a while longer, that she could barely handle the wait anymore. Lucas was told all about the rallying of her troops throughout the day and he just smirked, taking in her disbelief over how easily she’d gotten them all to commit.

“For you, Maya, for _this_ … There was no saying no, just ‘when can we start?’”

TO BE CONTINUED


	82. Her Creation of a Project

The plan was set, all of it ready to go at the sound of… well, go. None of it would get to happen until a couple of other things did, of course, one big thing in particular. Her parents needed to go to bed, and once that happened, she needed to wait until they were both reasonably off to sleep. Going off of the last few months, she didn’t see herself having to worry on that front. Her mother would be exhausted and gone off to sleep like a brick, and then her father wouldn’t leave her side ‘til morning. Even so, she waited a good half an hour before ‘mobilizing her troops,’ another half hour before giving them the signal to make their approach.

Maya had made a show of putting on her PJs earlier, but in the hour when she’d waited, since her parents had gone to bed, she had dressed again, and she had started on a few things before the others arrived. Some things she just needed to do on her own, couldn’t just leave it to anyone else. She stood in the middle of her room for a minute or two, looking around at everything as it was. She took a deep breath, and then she got to work, meticulously removing the drawings stuck to her walls, transferring them to special binders she’d bought on her way home from the diner.

“Maya,” a whispered call almost made her jump out of her skin in the silence, and she remembered she had left her window open just for this purpose. She turned and found Lucas was the first to arrive. She motioned for him to come in and he did.

“Help me with these?” she nodded to the walls. She’d already removed half of the multitude of drawings by now. With two of them on task, it sped up enough that, by the time Riley, Nadine, and Zay all arrived together, the task was done. The three of them were quickly put to work with tasks of their own and a reminder that they needed to be as quiet as though they weren’t there at all, because really this wouldn’t work if either of her parents woke up.

They started appearing at a regular interval after that, in twos and threes, which Maya learned was thanks to Julianne, who had intercepted everyone as they came their way, making sure it wouldn’t look suspicious that so many kids marched off toward the Hunter-Hart house in the middle of the night. As soon as they would pop through that window, they would be dispatched to do one thing or another and they would go and get started. In what felt like a minute, even though it had been more like twenty, the entire force of twenty-four was hard at work, though in the sustained silence – or near enough to it – there could have been no one in that house but its residents.

There was no turning back now, not that Maya would. She had thought long and hard about this, and she knew it was the right thing to do. She _wanted_ to do it, for them.

“Okay, Basement Team A, come this way,” Maya whispered in the beginning, clearing at least a portion of the crowd in her room, motioning a reminder to be quiet before opening her door and leading them in a row of silent-footed helpers, heading for the basement door. It was a good thing they’d fixed it, preventing that door from creaking so, so loudly every time they opened it. Tonight, it opened in blissful silence, and so Maya guided ‘BTA’ down the steps, directing them in what needed to be done. They didn’t question her and did as they were told.

Moving back toward her room, she stopped at the door to her parents’ room, listening in. All she could hear was the telltale sounds of sleeping dogs. She’d found a way to convince her mother and father to let the three pups stay in their room that night. Really, the one and only reason had been that there had just been no way to accomplish what she meant to accomplish with Tuck, Ghost, and Queen, yapping and barking at the presence of so many people coming through her window.

“Basement Team B, here,” Maya addressed those remaining in her room when she returned. BTB, which included Lucas, moved to stand before her in formation, smirking at her. “Cute,” she chuckled before giving them their marching orders and setting them to work. “Now the rest of you…”

“Don’t we get a name?” Riley whispered. Maya stared at the seven of them left with her, pondering.

“ _My_ Team,” she spread her arms, and her team grinned, the designation accepted. “Now let’s get to work, okay?” Her team nodded.

They had to work their way around BTB, as _they_ did their part of things, moving from her room to the basement and back, but all in all it went a lot smoother than she had feared it might go. Oh, they had a long way to go, but she was confident they could get it all done without a hitch… Mostly confident… She still got a bit on edge whenever she heard a noise that made her think either her mother or father were already up, or they would obviously be woken up by what they heard, but that ‘busted’ moment didn’t come, and so she got back to work. Every time Lucas and the rest of BTB came back around, he would just have to give her a quick nod and she would know everything in the basement was going well, too. Even so, she wasn’t sure she would calm down completely until there were twenty-three less people inside her house and her project reached its end.

TO BE CONTINUED


	83. Her Creation of Mischief

Between the time the last of their troops had climbed through her window and the time they climbed out of it again, four hours went by. It was well and properly night, and if it had been up to her she would have let them all stay there in the house, with how exhausted they all were, but in the end they all headed off, walking in groups that each included one person who’d come with their car and parked it a distance away. They _were_ exhausted, yes, but every one of them that Maya saw off through that window at the end of the night looked glad that they’d been able to help and couldn’t wait to hear about how it would all end up.

Those four hours had been a whirlwind really, and honestly Maya wouldn’t have believed it had been that long if she couldn’t see the time advancing whenever she’d happen to see a clock. Looking back on it all, it was truly a miracle her parents had never caught on to anything that was happening, right there in the house as they slept.

She just remembered how Lucas and Scott had come hurrying back into her room at one point, with looks in their eyes which – had they not been forced to stay quiet due to circumstances –would have been them raising alarms. They told her she needed to come with them to the basement, that they needed her right away. Fearing some kind of great incident that would force her to wake one or both of her parents for assistance, she had followed the boys over to the basement.

But it wasn’t chaos at all. Instead, when she got halfway down the steps, rushing as much as she could without making too much noise, she was presented with the fruits of the labor of both Basement Teams A and B, all of them making a good show of silent cheering and exaggerated gesturing. Maya’s heart – now that it had stopped ramming against her chest with concern – gave a sort of happy flip. She had been able to see the growing progress on her end of things, but the basement had been a mystery factor. She couldn’t just sneak off and see, and maybe some of BTB – Lucas more than anyone – could see she wanted to see. And now, as they had something to show, they had wanted to do just that… and have a little fun at the same time, of course.

“Alright, alright,” Maya raised her arms to ‘silence’ them, still unable to stop smiling. “BTB, keep at it, help BTA with Phase 2,” she directed them, and again they fell right to task. This was her show here, and their only purpose was to assist her in whatever way she needed them to do it.

Back to her room she’d gone, seeing how the rest of her team had kept on going in her absence. She got right back to what she’d been doing, as the basement teams got back to work.

By the time they entered the third hour, Maya could see that, much as all of them fared well enough despite the exhaustion, there was only so much they could do before that tiredness needed some outlet, and she would call that last hour the battle of the giggle wranglers. All it took was for one of them to make a silly and slightly suggestive joke, and then it was like some kind of contact high. While some of them would be trying so hard not to burst out into laughter, minding the silence they needed to keep, and then someone else would build on that first joke, and then on and on it would go, until some of them were actually red in the face, straining not to laugh. It would force them to stop and breathe and try to regain control of themselves, for fear of an unsteady hand as they worked.

Despite the ‘menace’ of those rolling giggle fits, Maya’s team had eventually finished its task, and she could not have asked for better. Coupled with the work of the basement teams – when the last of what they had been set to do, all that they _could_ do for the time being, had been done – it left them in a state of weightless accomplishment, which was likely also a lot of exhaustion, but the kind they could smile about.

“You guys…” Maya had addressed the troops, gathered again around her. “I really don’t know how to thank you. All of this… I couldn’t have done it without you.” If she cried now, she could write it off to how tired she was, right? All these friends, who’d come to help her from the word go, it was just… There were no words. “What I see here… we’re a team, whether it’s on a basketball court or not… And this is a win,” she beamed, looking at all those faces, smiling back at her like they would have gladly brought the house down with cheers if they could.

“And now we should go,” Asher told her, clapping a hand to her shoulder with a grin.

And off they’d gone, bit by bit emptying out of the bay window, until all that were left in there were Maya, Lucas, Riley, Asher, Joey, and Rebecca. Lucas would drive the rest of them home once they left.

“Please, please film it? In the morning?” Riley begged her. “I want to see…”

“Oh, I’m way ahead of you on that one,” Maya promised her, hugging her, feeling how desperately her best friend needed to go off to bed. They’d be a bunch of zombies in the morning if they didn’t get some sleep soon.

They went through the window, one by one, until the last one, who had been the first to arrive. Lucas enveloped her in arms that were just as tired as hers, if not more, and she breathed out as she felt his kiss atop her head.

“This is going to be weird for a bit,” he admitted, and her chuckle was muffled. That much was true, but then at the same time it felt right, and that was what mattered.

TO BE CONTINUED


	84. Her Creation of Love

Morning came about at the Hunter-Hart house, and Shawn was the first to awaken, looking to the woman sleeping at his side, his wife, the mother of his children, and as he did every morning, he would lay there for a moment still baffled by how his life had changed, and smiling at his luck that it had turned into this. He would get up, going about the start of his morning routine, thinking little of the fact that the door to Maya’s room was closed.

Eventually, Katy was up, too, met with breakfast in the process of being made by her husband, which left her to sit in wait, the two of them talking of what they would do that day, with their guests who were presently at their hotel and would in time join them again for their last full day in Austin before flying back home the following afternoon. When the breakfast was just about ready, she got back up and made her way to her daughter’s bedroom door, giving it a light knock.

“Hey, you awake in there?” she asked. Getting no response, she tried again. When _that_ got her nothing, she moved to quietly open the door, only to discover that it was locked. She knocked again now, a bit louder. “Maya?” Nothing. “Baby girl, breakfast is almost ready, you want to get some before it’s cold or what?” she tried, turning back to look at Shawn, who was looking at her curiously. “Door’s locked,” she explained, and he came up to join her. Why would her door be locked, especially this early in the morning? Unless… unless…

“Morning!” Maya greeted them sunnily, and they both turned to find her standing behind them. She looked like she hadn’t gotten much sleep, but there was something very happy about her face and her whole demeanor, which furthered their confusion, right up there with how she’d gotten to stand where she was. They hadn’t actually seen that the door to the basement was left just a crack ajar, or that she’d been perched on the top stair since before Shawn was even up, or that she’d emerged from her hiding place as soon as her parents had moved into the position she’d been waiting for them to take.

“How are you out here?” Shawn asked, looking back to her door, reaching out to confirm that it was indeed locked, which it was.

“Oh, that,” she nodded with a knowing smirk. “Well, see, the thing with surprises is you don’t want the surprised to _get_ surprised before you’re there to… surprise them,” she finished, counting off the number of times the word surprise had appeared in that one sentence, but then it all worked, so here they were. Her parents looked at her, bordering closer to clueless than anything else. “Right, okay, just a minute,” she told them, and then she went out the front door, leaving the two of them stood in rising confusion.

A few seconds later, they thought they heard the window inside the room being pulled up, someone climbing in… at least they hoped it was climbing in and not out. Whatever place their thoughts had gone, it all changed a moment later, as an envelope was pushed out under the door, which read ‘open me!’ in colorfully flourishing letters. Shawn crouched to retrieve it, opening it to find a piece of cardboard topped with a drawing of Maya’s face, flanked by two smiling baby faces. He showed it to Katy with a curious chuckle. She took it from him and went about reading aloud what was written below.

“Dear little brothers or sisters, here is my first act as your big sister. This house of ours changed my life once, and now the two of you have the chance to start yours in it. This is where our parents met, where they fell in love and we became a family. The three of us are waiting for you with all the anticipation of the love we already have for you… Six, if you count the dogs, which of course you should. When you arrive into the world and this house, let this be the place you fill with your dreams.”

In the distraction of the reading, neither Katy nor Shawn heard the click of the lock being turned. When Katy had reached the end of the note though, the door was pulled open, and the pair standing out in the hall – brimming with emotion already – looked up to discover just why the door had been locked. As promised to Riley, Maya stood there, filming with her phone and capturing the reaction on her mother and father’s faces when they discovered what their daughter (and twenty-three of her closest friends) had done. What had not twenty-four hours ago been Maya Hart’s bedroom and sanctuary was now transformed into a nursery.

The first crib had been bought already a while ago, though it had still been in the basement, not yet assembled, and Basement Team B, aka the movers and assemblers, would have been left to spare a second space for the other crib if not for the previous day’s shopping run. Now both cribs stood assembled and awaiting their occupants, as did the other items bought and left stored below. All the physical objects were only half of what made the room, of course. What really sold the rest were the walls. And that had been the work of Maya’s team, aka the muralists.

Without all the artwork along the walls, they had been presented with a vast, vast canvas, though it wasn’t as though they would have painted the whole of those four walls. Instead, the scene they had created was like a ribbon that surrounded the room. Maya had started sketching the outlines even before all her troops had shown up, peeling back sections of drawings from her walls, tracing carefully, and then placing the drawings back in place, until later, when the pages would be moved into their binders. When her team got to work, all they had to do was fill in the lines, even as she finished with the tracing she either hadn’t gotten to yet or hadn’t been able to get to until furniture had been moved out of the way. Little by little though, the mural had filled in, and grown, until it was what it was now.

“There’s still things missing, I know, but I’ll leave that part to you. Though if you need help,” Maya shrugged with a smile, seeing the stunned looks on their faces, stunned and touched.

“But where’s all your…” her mother started to ask, her voice trembling with barely contained tears.

“Basement,” Maya nodded. Basement Team A had done very well in first clearing the space and then setting everything BTB had brought down from her old room into her new room. She still could barely believe they’d managed to do all of it without waking them up. It had been startling to wake up down there for a moment, and she knew she’d have some finishing touches of her own to do, but that was just fine. Her new room was everything she could want it to be, even without…

“But the bay window, you loved having that…” her mother was still processing it all.

“I did, and I still do, it’s still there,” Maya shrugged. “Now I want them to have it,” she explained, tipping her head to her mother’s belly. Katy was speechless, and the best she could do was to hug her daughter close, peppering the side of her face with kisses which made her laugh.

“How did you even manage to do all this since… last night?” Shawn pointed out the thing that had really been leaving him confused.

“Oh, well, I had a lot of help,” Maya told him, a sheepish sort of smile that really felt more impish than anything, as she relayed the tale of those twenty-three boys and girls who’d come sneaking through the window the night before, working to create all this with her before crawling back out. She wasn’t sure what kept him from dwelling too long on the subject, either the sight of his babies’ new room or the knowledge that there would be no more crawling through that window now that it was no longer _her_ room. Maya had the presence of mind in this moment _not_ to point out that the basement had windows, too, and they had some accessibility of their own. Instead, she guided her parents through the discovery of the newly settled nursery, before showing them her new room down in the basement. She already had plenty of thoughts on how she might display her art down here, the old, the new, and all that would follow…

TO BE CONTINUED


	85. Their Anticipation to Finish

May would soon pass into June, bringing Maya and Lucas and all their friends and classmates one day and another and another closer to summer, though as always, the closer they got to it, summer became this thing they tried not to think about too much, not when they had so much work to do before they got to it. Thinking of summer was just a distraction at this point, and they couldn’t afford distractions at all, not with projects due and finals looming and so much writing and reading required of them that it felt at times like their eyes and hands would give up on them before they could get through it all. The only relief they could count on was that momentary feeling of weightlessness they’d get as one thing was completed, right before they needed to take that surge and use it to carry on with everything else they still had on their plate.

Maya at least felt the release herself, the day she handed in her photography project. It had taken her so long to come up with the subject, and then after a while it had sort of dawned on her that she had been working on her project unbeknownst to her. She had taken the habit of carrying her camera with her at least one or two days every week, and she would snap here, snap there, when she’d see something that inspired her. And then one day, in the small dark room they’d set up in the basement months ago, as she showed Shawn what she had, he pointed out all the shots she had of various members of the defunct basketball teams. The players laughing together, talking together, working and playing together, the players caught in a moment of private thought any of them would recognize as their reflecting on what they’d lost, and what they missed, and what they so wished to get back. It had been the story of this year of theirs, hadn’t it? So maybe that was what she’d needed to focus on, for them as much as for herself. That was what she’d done, and, with her friends’ permission gladly given, her project had been turned in.

The funny thing in all this – if they could really use the word ‘funny’ – was that their not having basketball to think about, on top of everything, did free up some of their time, allowed them to get some things done earlier than they might have done if they still had it. Of course, they still had plenty to occupy their time outside of school other than basketball, which could get in the way of their workload, too. All their jobs weren’t so much of a hindrance though. Whether it was at the diner, or the movie theater, or the museum, they all had moments where they had nothing better to do than to sneak in a few minutes of work, of study, between one thing and the next.

Lucas still had his team with Farkle, and even though all of them had the same ‘issue’ occupying them outside of their sessions of play together, it did feel like a very necessary sort of allowance that they gave themselves, a chance to breathe and clear their heads before returning deep within the battle trenches of sophomore year. Maya, for her part, had her quiz team, which in these weeks was as much about the team and their competitions as it was about coming together as a study group. In the past months, they had gotten into this groove together, earned out of all they’d done for the quiz team, so studying together was just a natural progression. Maya, Nadine and Rebecca would also do what they could to help Scott, one year below them, with all they remembered of the year before.

Somewhere through all that, life went on. They still made it a point of coming together on some afternoons where they could, at the hoop outside Dylan’s house, or Maya’s house, or at the park… It was what they had always done, for as long as they had been friends, and it would stay with them for as long as they did. They would also pitch in with Rebecca and her ailing grandmother, Zay with _his_ ailing GiGi, and of course Maya and her ever growing mother. Katy’s due date was still several weeks away, but with how they had started thinking of it in weeks instead of months, it was a swift and constant reminder that these babies were not so far away at all. Before long, Riley’s grandparents would be making their way down to Austin, and with any luck Maya’s recent guests would make a repeat visit. Day to day, the nursery looked even more ready to welcome its future occupants, with gifts and other acquisitions making it feel like if those little ones didn’t come soon, everyone would burst from the wait.

It was June now though, and before very long it _would_ be summer, and once that happened, they all knew, everything would happen very fast. Everything would change, and it would feel as though, by the time they stepped up as juniors in the coming fall, they would once again have hit the reset button, stepping in as new and evolved people, one year older and carried onward on the heels of a year well spent.

TO BE CONTINUED


	86. Their Anticipation to Decorate

The diner was closed over the weekend for renovations, leaving Maya with a rare extension to her free time, and she had just the thing to use it for. Ever since she’d made the transfer from her old room to her new one down in the basement, she had yet to really finish setting things up just as she wanted them, in particular the parts that involved her art and just how she would adorn these new and bare walls. But that was alright, it was. It had given her plenty of time to really allow her new basement-bound existence to expand and take shape, to take in the space she had and really start to imagine what she would do with it. She didn’t want to go off rushing, just plastering things to her walls because she’d had them in one particular way back in her old room. And she didn’t have any wall shelves anymore anyway, which would change her options a lot. Her shelves, the ones Lucas had given her, remained hung to the wall in the nursery, passed on to her unborn siblings along with the room itself.

But then leave it to Lucas Friar to figure out her plans that Saturday morning, because even as she’d still been standing there in the middle of the room, waiting for some form of an idea to come into her mind, she’d turned and startled to find a face staring back at her through the closed window, _his_ face, as he crouched there, waving back at her. Quickly, she went and slid the window to the side, stepping back as he sat and let his legs dangle into the room before dropping to the floor.

“Hey,” he tipped his head to her, taking a breath as he smiled. She could only laugh, greeting him back, even as he seemed to recall something and he went and reached for it just outside the window, left leaning against the side of the house as he was coming through.

“What the…” she backed away again as she came to see that the thing he had brought along was a long cardboard box, an image on the front telling her just what was inside. Wall shelves, new ones, not passed on like the previous ones.

“You wouldn’t happen to have some tools hanging around somewhere, would you?” he asked, all grins and pride. She could only bite back a snort. “I happen to be very good at hanging these.”

“Are you now?” she asked back, her cheeks hurting from smiling.

“When I have the right help,” he confirmed, and she nodded before raising on her toes to kiss him.

“You are seriously too sweet for your own good, Huckleberry. Good thing you’ve got me around to protect you from having that sweetness get all taken advantage of.”

“Funny, I was thinking the same thing,” he was all smiles, too.

So, they got to work. Together they had figured out what spot would be best for the shelves. There were more of them in this set, and Maya was glad, thinking of times where she had wished she had more, and guessing Lucas had thought of it, too. And they sort of fit better with the rest of her furniture, which had never been an issue for her in the past, but now that she had these, she couldn’t help but to notice it, could she?

Shawn had come along at the sound of the drill, discovering what they were doing as much as the fact that Lucas was even there at all. He offered to help, only to learn the whole history of the previous set of shelves, and how Maya and Lucas had put them up in her old room, already three years ago now, and how they had things well under control. So, with little more to say on the matter, her father had gone back up the stairs and left them to it. It was so, so hard not to chuckle about it all. They just got back to work.

With the shelves mounted to the wall, they’d stood back and taken in their handiwork. They had set them in one corner, alternating each separate shelf, all lined up in that corner, though one would be mounted to the right, the next to the left, then right again, and left, and right, and left. Had their lengths increased the further down they went, it would almost have looked like a Christmas tree.

“Excellent work, Mr. Friar,” she nodded.

“Why, thank you, Miss Hart,” he replied. “So what are you going to do about the rest?” he asked, as she already moved to gather the items she’d place on those shelves, and she knew by ‘the rest’ he referred to ‘the rest of the walls,’ her art.

“I was thinking,” she turned back to him, falling right into step with the plans she’d been making and moving him to come and stand with her, facing one of the walls, the smaller of the two without windows but the only one without furniture against it, too. “Instead of having all the walls covered with my stuff, I’d concentrate it on just the one wall. Drawings, and paintings, and photographs.” Thus far the only thing hanging from any wall – other than the shelves now – was one poster, of course, the one he’d given her, back over her bed as it had been in her old room, because really it wouldn’t have felt right without it.

“I like that, yeah,” he agreed with a smile.

“Yeah,” she chimed in, teetering on her toes excitedly. “Now I just need to figure out _which_ ones to put up there,” she gave him a look that said plainly ‘want to help me pick?’

They were still sitting there on the floor of her room, binders and sketchbooks and albums and selections all around them, when they both got the text at the same time. Julianne Shelby. A decision had been reached regarding the basketball teams. An announcement would be made in the coming week.

TO BE CONTINUED


	87. Their Anticipation to Hear

The rest of the weekend had felt like something out of the past, out of previous moments of their being left to sit in wait of something that had their stomachs tied in knots for the need to know already. The best they could do for the time being was to devote themselves to anything else they could, to keep themselves busy rather than to get stuck in a loop of thinking whether they would or wouldn’t get basketball back in the coming year.

On Monday morning, Lucas had been gathering up his things to go and get Maya from her house, as he did every day, when he heard Dash start to bark, and all he could think was that she would always bark like that, in that sort of giddy way when he came around, him or…

“Maya?” he startled at the sight of her outside his window, waving at him. He hurried to the window and pulled it open, reaching to help her climb through. _His_ bedroom window, unlike hers, wasn’t quite as reachable from the outside. And much as she had managed it, until she was back on safe ground there was still the possibility she might fall and he couldn’t well have that, could he? “What are you doing up here? I was coming to get you…”

“Yeah, I couldn’t wait, alright?” she admitted once she was stood there in front of him. “I’ve been up since forever…”

“Forever?”

“Well, three hours. I tried to get back to sleep, wasn’t happening, so I got up. Good news is I’ve done a lot of school things, so at least my insomnia’s lightening my workload. Except then I had nothing else to do so I decided to just come here to you instead of the other way around,” she ended her explanation with a firm nod and a smile to him. He wasn’t too sure just what to tell her now except…

“Breakfast?”

“Good idea,” she agreed.

By the time they got to school, which was just as ahead of schedule as she had been earlier, they found they hadn’t been alone in their anxious need to just get there already. They were still the first ones there, yes, but even so, by all measure, the rest of their friends and former teammates flooded in to join them much earlier than _they_ usually would, and so it became another repeat, of all of them sitting with nothing more to do but to wait until they would be given just… something.

“You know, it’s almost too bad I’ve turned in my photography project already, this…” Maya looked around at the mass of people sat near them, “This is like the final chapter.” She was trying to make light of it, but he could see she was just anxious, as she’d been since she showed up at his window earlier. He put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned her head to his with a sigh.

This year, this school year that was very near to being over, it had just been marred by this one event, and now that they were finally getting ready to hear some kind of resolution, they could do nothing but think back on all of it. They hadn’t stopped themselves from living, from doing everything else in their lives, but even so…

They had to remember all of it, from the initial shock, the day Julianne had gathered them to pass on the news. They would remember how harsh some of the other students had been to them in the beginning, how some of them had been that much more affected by it than others. It wasn’t nearly so bad anymore, sure, but it wasn’t completely gone either.

“Some people just have nothing better to do with their time,” Zay would declare with a shake of the head whenever such an incident would trickle down for the rest of them to hear about. Others on the teams would have had a much more… vocal, physical response to something like that, but then they had their teammates to keep them from losing control, like the good friends they were.

And then of course there were all the other issues, like how it would come to affect their futures, to lose something like that. Some of them counted on the sport to help them onward in the long run, and though some of them had done what they could and shuffled off to some other team, it was clear to see that it was hardly by choice and more by necessity. It was basketball they wanted, and it was basketball they’d lost, and nothing would take its place, would it?

The one upside they had managed to find in all this, for all the downsides they’d had to maneuver through, was finding the kinship that existed between all of them. They’d been locked into this shared experience, all of them together. No one else would know what they were feeling, no one but the others who that morning sat and stood around the bench outside their school. Maya still thought about the work they’d done, helping her with the nursery/bedroom relocation in the middle of the night.

Finally, it was time for all of them to head into the building, scattered to the winds and classrooms until such a time as this fateful announcement would be made. Lucas stopped Maya before she headed off to her own first period class, one quick hold and kiss, a tip of the head. _All will be well._

“Yeah,” she sighed but smiled, kissing him back before going off with Nadine, Asher, and Rebecca. So, the wait would go on, soothed by the distraction of chemistry class.

TO BE CONTINUED


	88. Their Anticipation to Know

The morning could have felt very much like a repeat of the day where they had believed they’d get their resolution and, in some ways, it was exactly like that, all except for one thing. This time it was all real, not just their imagination, and if they needed any proof, they only had to look to their teachers. In chemistry, in algebra, in French class and in Mr. Matthews’ history class, too, they could see that sort of knowing look in the men and women’s faces and it would be clear to them. Their teachers had been advised that an announcement would be made on that day, and so they would be prepared for the interruption to their classes. As soon as they had all realized this, the goal had then become to somehow suss out the answer, one way or the other.

Well either all their teachers were excellent poker players, which Maya and Riley both could deny, seeing as one of those teachers was Cory Matthews himself, or they had only been told about the announcement and not about what would be announced.

It went on all morning like this, waiting for the shoe to drop and all. Everyone was on their best behavior, as though it would magically make the time go by, but really all they could do was sit and wait and feel the ongoing slug crawl that was their morning classes.

When lunch time came around, Lucas found Maya stood at her locker, though she was facing the other way, in some deep sort of staring at the entrance to the administrative office down the hall. He could see into her eyes, he knew that look. She was trying to either convince herself to do something or to _not_ do it, and he could only think of one thing it could be at this point.

“Can’t go in there,” he told her, moving to stand at her side. She didn’t look up at him, but he could see on her face the sort of rising antsy thoughts, turned to frustration.

“I know,” she sighed, turning back to close her locker. “Could have gotten them to tell me,” she insisted with a firm nod, and Lucas had his arm around her shoulders as they walked off together, before they’d have to split off for English class, as though to say ‘sure you would.’

They were just a step or two off from splitting off for the start of their afternoon classes when the call came through the halls that they were about to be addressed by the principal.

“No assembly this time, is that a good sign or…” Lucas thought aloud. Maya had no idea how to respond to that, as she’d thought the same thing, quietly.

“Maybe they don’t want to cause a scene,” Nadine suggested, stopping to stand with them, as she would have then carried on to AP English with Maya once she and Lucas split off.

It felt, for those seconds of wait that followed, as though time stood still. Both Maya and Lucas could see some of the others who were near enough now started to gravitate toward them, so that by the time the principal finally came over the speakers, there was a good dozen of them stood like a solitary island in the sea of the school hallways. Maybe down other parts of the school there was another small island or two, staring up at the speakers as though it was the voice of their future speaking to them, telling them what the year to come would hold for them. To play or not to play…

It probably looked much too dramatic to anyone else standing around them, but then they wouldn’t get what this meant to them, would they?

As the principal started to talk, there was a moment where they were left to wonder if Julianne had misunderstood what this announcement was about, if she’d just assumed it would be about basketball. He went on for a minute or so about something regarding the janitorial staff, which could have been very important, but really no one on that small island of theirs paid it much mind beyond the fact that it had nothing to do with what they wanted to know about.

But then, finally, the principal had moved on from the previous topic, and he started in with the next, the one they had wanted to know about.

He started off by reminding everyone of what had happened at the start of the year, as though any of them who were concerned by the situation could have forgotten any of it.

“Oh, just say it already,” Asher groaned, standing behind Maya.

“That guy missed his calling as an emcee,” Zay added.

“Shh, quiet!” Riley waved their small talk away. This was it.

The principal might later realize he would have done well to consider the sequencing of his revelations, as he began by announcing the reinstating of the school’s boys’ and girls’ basketball teams, to a raucous and overpowering outburst of cheer, of crying and hugging and high fiving, the noise loud enough that, back in his office, he would have heard it nearly as loud, just as he would have to realize his mistake and have to call everyone to hear him once again, so he might reveal this was only half the news.

The teams _would_ be reinstated, yes, but only in the fall after next. It had been decided that they would let one more year pass, let more of the dust settle, before they would let the teams be formed again. Maya looked to Lucas at her side. Their senior year… The teams would only be back over their senior year.

TO BE CONTINUED


	89. Their Anticipation to Express

As send-offs toward afternoon classes went, the principal’s schoolwide announcement hadn’t exactly been the one any of them would have preferred to have. Best as they tried to stay minded to what their teachers were saying or asking them to do, none of those touched by the decision were guaranteed to provide much more than 50% attention wise. Whatever remained of their minds was locked in an unending loop, repeating and repeating what they had been told.

No basketball for two whole years. Sure, one of those two years was nearly done, but even so, it was impossible to look at the decision the school had made like it wasn’t a very divisive sort of situation. It was a good thing in the long run, sure, but that good thing was locked up behind several doors, one behind another, and another, and another, until it was so removed from them that they couldn’t feel it at all. Those doors would open, sure, but they’d have to wait more than a year before all of them were opened… and not all of them would be making the journey with them.

When the last of their classes were over for the day, it seemed that without really having to say it, all of them, former and prospective and honorary players alike, ended up finding their way back to the bench outside school, where they had been just a few hours ago, back when they didn’t know which way this would all turn. They needed to come together, to acknowledge what they had been told and how it would affect them.

Of their twenty-four, four were not ever part of the teams, three of them by choice, and one of them because he hadn’t been able to join this year. He would get his shot, in his junior year. Three had seen their last year of play taken from them this year, while eight of them now knew they’d be thrown in the same situation come next fall. This left nine of them former players with a chance to return to the teams, if they chose to try out after all, during their senior year. Even now, they seemed to have found themselves at the heart of this gathering, either sitting on the bench or stood just behind it, Maya, and Nadine, and Sofia, and Lucas, Zay, Asher, Dylan, Blake, and Kenji, and then Scott Shelby as well.

No one knew how to act around the others. The ones who found their chance – distant as it remained – returned to them wanted to express their joy and their relief, but it felt rude to do so in front of those who weren’t as lucky. And the ones who’d lost their chance felt pained by it, but they didn’t want to wreck what was great news for the ones who would get to play here again. And those who had been wallowing in their irreversible loss already were feeling much of this, too, even though they thought they had made their peace with it a long time ago.

“This is ridiculous,” Julianne Shelby finally sighed. She had become something like their captain in all this year, and now here she sat, one of those who’d lost her chance, as next year would be her senior year, and yet she once again took it upon herself to rally the rest of them. “You guys,” she turned to the ten on or behind the bench with a genuine smile, “This is great news.”

“We’ll come and cheer you on when we can,” Ray Choi jumped in on this, tapping Asher’s shoulder with a smirk, and Asher chuckled. “So, you better win.”

Some of the tension did sort of release after that, and as the sophomores among them – and freshman Scott – were allowed to celebrate, they turned it around and allowed the juniors to mourn, recognizing how much this sucked for them.

“Hey, finals are coming, what if you just didn’t show up, then you’d flunk and have to repeat,” Dylan suggested, shaking free a small laugh from the juniors.

“You’ll get to play!” Riley was thrilled to state, looking over at Scott, who had been guarding his smile around his sister not long before. But now Julianne had her arms around him, basking in her big sister privileges to embarrass him a little bit, and he was downright beaming. He would be the only one of them who got to play two consecutive years at the school in a long time.

“Who are the coaches going to be?” Zay wondered aloud.

“I don’t know if they’ve gotten that far yet,” Nadine pointed out. “They’re going to want to be really sure, I guess, so it doesn’t end up like last time.”

Bit by bit, the group splintered off, as everyone went off to where they needed to be. Maya and Lucas and their friends ended up back at the Orlando house though, feeling the day required nothing short of a rousing game at their hoop. Julianne had been right, this was great news, even if it came along with a bit of a bittersweet taste. They had not played nearly as much this past year, and though they all knew why, and though it felt very much like a good reason, now it seemed there was no better time to return to the old ways. They played five against five, going so far as to pull the second hoop from the backyard over to the one mounted over the garage door, so they could have a proper game. Their court was a bit smaller than the gym, but that didn’t seem to matter, not today.

TO BE CONTINUED


	90. Their Anticipation to Consider

They’d gone back to his house, Maya and him, after the game with the rest of their group had come to an end, a rousing victory for Maya’s team. The two of them had made a wager, whoever’s team lost, they had to host the other one for dinner, so here they were, though Maya would sweetly reassure Lucas that he was by no means a ‘loser’ in her heart, and he would milk it for all it was worth, which only made her laugh out more.

When Lucas’ parents had heard the news about the basketball teams’ – eventual – return, they had been thrilled (his mother proportionally to her usual levels of excitement, which was to say about three times as much as anyone else’s) and decided it merited some takeout. Lucas and Maya would have gladly gone out to get it themselves, but Mr. Friar insisted that, as the celebrated parties, they were not to lift a finger. He and his wife would go out to get it, and the two of them would wait here for their return.

“He’s going to pick up my parents, too, isn’t he?” Maya guessed aloud as the Friar parents headed out.

“Oh, yeah,” Lucas nodded, having thought the same. “So, do we run?”

“Nah, they’ll find us,” she whispered, throwing him a look, and he smirked.

They went up to his room, on the hunt for little Dash, who was hardly so little now, though she wasn’t very big either, even if she wasn’t a puppy anymore.

“Cheers, lady,” Maya smiled, crouching to pick up the eager dog, who wasted no time giving good on snuggles, which Maya happily received. She ended up sat there with the dog, leaving Lucas to sit across from the pair of them.

“Still wish we didn’t have to wait a whole other year,” he said, and she looked up at him. “I mean I’m glad it’s coming back, more than glad, really, but it was already complicated to think about what I’d do if it came back this fall, now…”

“You think you might not try out again?” Maya asked, sounding just surprised enough he realized she hadn’t really known about all he’d been thinking about.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Just there’s the museum, and everything with Farkle, and school, and… everything. Can’t do all of that _and_ basketball.” She was quiet for a beat, and he knew now she was realizing it for herself, too. The diner, the quiz team, school, everything… Something would have to go away if she wanted to go and play again. And she did want to play again. But she also didn’t want to give anything up. He came to sit nearer now, knowing she now found herself in the same boat he was in.

“It’s still a year away, isn’t it?” she stated after a moment, talking to herself as much as to him.

“It is,” he nodded.

“A lot can happen in a year,” she added.

“Something you and I are very familiar with,” he pointed out, teasing a smile out of her. “So, no driving ourselves nuts for a year, deal?”

“Deal,” she breathed, turning her attention back to Dash, giving the dog some much appreciated scratches. They were both all too glad to commit to this state of mind for the coming year, each of them having been caught up in the aftermath of the teams’ removal and not looking forward to repeating that for a second year running. Basketball was returning, and that was a great thing, and when the time came for them to make a choice, hopefully, they would know the choice that needed to be made for both of them.

“You know, if it wasn’t for all this, we’d be getting ready for the end of the year party at the Shelby house,” Lucas pointed out. She looked at him. “What?” he asked, but she just smiled and reached into her pocket for her phone, carefully writing out a message with one hand and tending to Dash in her lap with the other. “Who are you texting?”

“Party Mistress,” Maya declared, and he understood. Julianne. “No reason we can’t have the party anyway, right? Especially now, with the news we got.”

In no time, she’d gotten a reply back from Julianne. Evidently she’d had more or less the same idea, and had been in the process of getting things in motion, about to send out the invitation to the rest of the group, including Riley again, but also Joey and Rebecca, who along with Riley may not have been part of the teams but had been so present for the rest of them throughout this past year that it wouldn’t have felt right not to invite them. This party, as they had seen the year before, was generally players only, not even including any boyfriends or girlfriends from outside the teams, but then every so often they would make exceptions. In those times, the additional guests in question were almost voted on by the importance they had for the teams as a whole.

“Friday night, Shelby house,” Maya finally declared, showing the reply to Lucas. “A party you shall have, Lucas Friar,” she beamed. “And no less than… mm… eight dances, with yours truly.”

“Eight?” he smirked at the random number.

“Keep it up and it’ll be ten,” she teased.

“Is that right?” he moved toward her, and she already had the dog set aside before he could sweep her up and she laughed. “Make it a dozen and you’re on,” he told her, pulling her into his arms.

“Baker’s or regular? Are you superstitious, Huckleberry?”

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” he shrugged before she kissed him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	91. Their Anticipation to Cheer

It might have been that, had the teams been allowed to play over the past school year, they would have had this party one way or the other, after the last games had been played. It would have been right around this time, so really it had been a no brainer whether or not they would go through with this. And as they had been saying since the day of the announcement, much as it was a bittersweet sort of resolution, the sweetness could not be pushed aside for the sake of the bitterness. A bit of good news at last, despite its caveats, needed to be celebrated, and so that was what they would do.

It hardly seemed possible a year had gone by since the last party, and in recalling that it had been it became that much easier to stop and reminisce on the things that had changed, the things that had stayed the same, for better, for worse, for… whatever was in between.

Lucas thought about how there’d been a sort of sadness between Maya and him, much as they’d tried not to think about it, both of them feeling the impending separation of the Hunter-Hart family’s extended European trip. Looking back on it now, it did feel a bit like they’d been over dramatic about it all, but at the same time he knew that, if she was to go away for weeks on again, he would feel just as much of a gap in his heart as he did then… maybe more… The thing he was coming to learn, much as she was, about love, and relationships, was that they never really stopped growing and evolving. Well, maybe for some people it did stop, or else no one would ever break apart, but… All he could speak for, in his own experience, was that he loved Maya more now than he did a year ago, and probably would love her even more in another year’s time. Knowing that this year’s party would hold none of the fears of the last one only made him more anxious to get to it.

And Maya… Maya would think about the previous year’s party, too, think about how, of all the things that had changed since then, there was one thing that had _not_ changed, a thing she felt surely by now might have evolved, in some shape or form, in the span of all these months. And now that she realized it hadn’t, she got to wondering, if she would be holding on to this secret forever. She would do it, of course she would. It wasn’t her secret to tell, and she wasn’t about to push anyone, least of all one of her closest friends, into doing something they didn’t want to do. Still, a small part of her couldn’t help but think to herself… Maybe this year… maybe this party… maybe things would change.

As with the year before, Riley had been recruited to assist in getting things set up at the Shelby house for the party. The upside, this year more than the year before (and Maya took a certain amount of pleasure in lovingly teasing Riley about it) was that it would enable her dear old friend to spend some more one-on-one time with a certain Scott Shelby. To see how her face would lose all control over her smile at the thought of it was just too good to pass up. She would go on pretending as though there was nothing much to it, but Maya could see it. Just about every one of their friends could see it, too, see how Riley’s… appreciation of the freshman Shelby had in no way relented in the past months. It had come to be so much of a thing that Maya now had a wager with Lucas as to how long it would take before something finally happened between the pair of them.

Just as he’d been getting into his car to go and pick up Maya on the night of the party, he’d received a text from her with something of an odd request. He drove up to her house, moving around the opposite side of the house from where he was so used to going to her window, which was no longer her window but her soon-to-be siblings’ instead. On the other side though he could find the windows to the basement, so very near to the grass. There were some curtains hung on the inside now, which Maya had sewn herself, with the guidance of a recovering GiGi Babineaux. They were pulled open at the window he had previously crawled through in order to bring Maya’s new shelves. He crouched and gave a knock.

She popped into view so suddenly he realized she must have been sitting just underneath, waiting for him. He kind of hoped she hadn’t seen him jump out of surprise.

“Well hey,” she smirked, opening the window. “Right on time.” A moment later she was climbing and hoisting herself out of the window, deftly enough that she didn’t get herself covered in dirt or grass stains. The window was closed again before she stood to her full height and faced him. “Let’s go,” she grinned.

“Hold on, why’d you have me come and get you from here?” he asked, pointing down to her window.

“I’m sneaking out,” she shrugged.

“But your parents know we’re going to the party… Also, I thought you said they had a doctor’s appointment.”

“And why should that stop me?” she shrugged again.

“Right, okay,” Lucas could only smile, holding out his arm to his ‘sneak’ of a girlfriend.

So off they were to the Shelby house, with one stop over to the Garcia house to pick up Asher, Joey, and Rebecca. As they came up to their destination, the three of them who had been there the year before recalled the time they’d all been left to wait out front until they could be allowed into the back yard, because Julianne hadn’t been ready for them yet.

There was no wait this year. The guests were welcomed warmly by Riley at the fence gate, calling everyone’s entrance like she was calling players’ entrances, down to their jersey numbers, none of them forgotten. When it came to the other two who, like her, did not _have_ a number to get called, she would make one up, never to leave anyone out. As simple a gesture as it all was, anyone could see how it did make the juniors and seniors smile in a different way than it did the sophomores and Scott, almost like their curtain call, the one they had never gotten to have.

It wouldn’t be long that Maya and Lucas would find themselves on the dance floor. They _had_ promised one another a certain number of dances, hadn’t they? And how could they not get carried on with the music, and all their friends there around them? They were celebrating a win of a whole other kind this time around, and they were celebrating the end of a school year, and the coming of summer. They were seeing off their graduating players, Étienne, and Tommy, and Lizzy, too.

“This is going to turn into another competition, isn’t it?” Lucas asked Maya halfway through what was either their seventh or eighth dance.

“Would it be _this_ party if it didn’t?” she pointed out with a grin. “I’m pretty sure Ray wants a rematch for last year,” she stated, turning her head to spot him not too far off, with Blake, Scott, and Asher. He sent her a ‘challenging’ look, complete with ‘oh it’s on’ gestures, which she matched before turning back to Lucas. “Won’t even hold it against you if you cheer on your team more. They do kind of need it more than we do,” she teased. Lucas only shook his head with confidence. He would be happy either way, of course.

As predicted, a few dances later, the players had started to amass near the hoop, and soon the dancing was forgotten, in favor of a competition which began much as the previous year’s had done. This time around, the final three came down to Maya, Nadine, and Lizzy for the girls, and Dylan, Ray, and Scott for the boys. Nadine and Dylan had been the first out to either side, and then to everyone’s surprise, it wasn’t Maya and Ray left standing in the end. Instead they had Lizzy Barrett, the senior, versus Scott Shelby, the freshman. Even if he had yet to officially play for their school, he was as good as one of them, and there was no doubting he was every bit the legacy his family held around here, as he stood victorious. Everyone had been on him to congratulate him – none more than Riley – and to mark him for the future of basketball for their school.

TO BE CONTINUED


	92. His Discovery of a Secret

After the competition which saw Scott Shelby come out victorious, they had all started to spread out again, some off to dance, some off to chat along with friends, some remaining at the hoop… Lucas had only to look at Maya to know she still had some dancing in her, and so he had held out his hand to her and she’d smiled as he led her to the dance floor. Truth be told, they had lost count of how many dances they’d had, the one sure thing in all this was that they had surpassed the number they had set themselves, official only in how they had wanted to dance a lot and they had done just that, so all in all they had done pretty well for themselves, hadn’t they?

“Alright, I think we’ve reached the part where we need to stop and breathe for a bit,” she declared before looking at her phone and breathing out. “And it’s almost time for us to go, I promised my mother I’d be home before late, and I don’t want to give her more stress than she needs right about now, you know?”

“I know,” he assured her. It was time for them to start thinking of heading out. “I’ll go see if the others are ready, too, or if they want to stay longer and catch another ride. Want something to drink?”

“Yes, please,” she beamed, giving him that ‘look at you, being a good boyfriend guy’ look, and he responded to it in kind, with a tip of an invisible hat before moving back toward the house. On the way, he found Joey and Rebecca and confirmed that, yes, they were ready to go, too.

A table had been set up with snacks and drinks, but when he got there, he saw there was no more root beer. When Scott stepped up next to him, Lucas asked if they had more, and Scott pointed to the house, saying there’d be some in the basement. So, into the house he went, coming to the basement and heading down the steps. There was an old refrigerator there, which he knew from his former team captain, Nathan, had been upstairs up until they had replaced it with a new one some years back. As promised, he found several cold cans of root beer and he picked up two, moving back to the stairs with one in each hand.

Standing on the basement stairs of the Shelby house, when you got just high enough, you would find yourself facing the steps leading up to the second floor, right up to the landing.

As Lucas was coming up the basement steps, flexing his fingers as they felt the cold of the cans he held, he spotted his last passenger for the night. Asher was standing up there, talking with Ray Choi, though their voices were kept too low for Lucas to make out any of what they might have been saying. He opened his mouth to call out and let Asher know he and the others were looking to leave before long, but he stopped himself short, as he went from seeing the two boys up there to actually taking in the scene.

The two of them stood facing one another, heads bowed just enough to compensate for the quietness they were attempting to keep. They had always been close, since they had come to be on the basketball team the year before. Lucas had known Ray longer, from back when they had been in the same grades, right up until he’d been held back because of his suspension. It had been through Asher’s friendship with Ray that Maya had ended up with her puppies the year before.

The way they stood together now though, the way they looked at each other, there was a nuance that felt to Lucas like he had missed something. He had never seen that look in Asher’s eyes before, that look of total and open joy. _Love?_

He watched, still stuck to the step where he stood, as Ray reached out his hand to Asher’s cheek, saying something that made the other boy smile, before leaning across the short distance to join their lips into a kiss that could not have been their first.

Finally, Lucas snapped out of his surprise, having the presence of mind to step back down, where he couldn’t see them and where they couldn’t see him. But he listened, listened until he heard the two of them come down the stairs and until he heard the door out to the yard open and close again.

When he returned to the yard, to hand Maya the can he’d retrieved for her, he sat at her side and opened his own can. They drank for a bit, before Maya asked him if he’d checked with the others as to whether they were ready to head home, too.

“Yeah, I…” he blinked, looking around. Asher and Ray were off with Joey and Rebecca now, and he guessed Joey was letting his brother know about the ride home. Asher was nodding. He was ready to go, too. “Yeah, we’re good,” he told Maya.

“You okay?” she asked, frowning at him, and he guessed he must have had some look on his face, showing the confusion happening in his mind. He couldn’t exactly say anything, not here, not now, if at any time at all. He was still trying to sort things out for himself as it was.

“Fine, just tired,” he shrugged it off, letting a few gulps of root beer hide out whatever might still have been there for her – or Rebecca, or Joey, or… Asher – to see when they would go and get them. “Come on, let’s go.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	93. His Discovery of Confusion

All he could do until he got home and was able to stop and think about what he’d seen was just to try and not think about any of it, act like it had never happened. Because one way or another he had stumbled upon something he wasn’t meant to see. It was not his business to let anyone in on any of it that wasn’t supposed to know any more than he did. So, he kept quiet, and he got everyone home, Rebecca, and Asher and Joey, and then Maya.

“What’s the matter, too much dancing got you worn out?” she asked with a chuckle as they stopped in front of her house.

“Yeah, little bit,” he lied, a small white lie he knew she would have understood was necessary for the time being.

Even as he was driving back home alone, he still didn’t open that door in the back of his mind again. No, it would stay good and locked until he had made it home, said good night to his parents, and gone up to his room.

Once he’d made it there, and it was just him and the dog, he sat on the edge of his bed, and he opened that door again, letting the memory of that moment back at the Shelby house into his active thoughts. Asher, gazing at Ray Choi like he was the whole world, Asher kissing Ray Choi under the quiet cover of the Shelby house while the rest of them had been outside…

Far was it for him to make assumptions, but anyone looking at the two of them, assuming that no one was there to see them, would have to know that something was happening between them. Now Lucas couldn’t help but stop and wonder. How long had this been going on? How long, and how had they not known?

Lucas had known the both of them for the better part of his life, even if he and Ray had not been as close in recent years, since Lucas had moved down one grade away from him. Still, he thought back, inevitably trying to pinpoint some sign, somewhere, that would let him suddenly make sense of the fact he hadn’t realized the two of them were… well, he didn’t know exactly what they were, if they were gay, or maybe bisexual, like Nadine. They’d always known about her though, it was literally one of the first things they’d known about her once they’d started hanging out and being friends with her, almost like she wanted to make sure they’d be okay with it before she got too attached to them. Asher and Ray though…

He had been eight when he’d met the seven-year-old Asher in little league, and Ray he had known since kindergarten. As far as Ray went, they had never been much more than classmates, teammates. They might hang out if they ran into each other outside school. He was fairly sure the only times he’d been to Ray’s house – beyond the time where he had been helping Maya with the puppies before they’d been able to go home with her – was for birthday parties. This was only on the years where Ray’s family invited his classmates over, and the same went the other way, for Ray’s being in the Friar house. So really, it was less of a thing for him to not have realized anything before tonight.

But Asher was Asher, he and Dylan and Zay, for a long time, before Nadine and Maya and the rest had come into the picture, had been the people he was the closest to that weren’t related to him by blood. They were his closest friends, and he was sure he knew them in a proportionate amount to that closeness. If there was a quiz on those guys, he would ace it and probably earn up a whole load of bonus points, and the same went for each of them. He _knew_ them. But now… Now he was forced to wonder if he actually did.

Because this was huge, this wasn’t just finding out someone didn’t like mushrooms or was afraid of spiders or still slept with an old teddy bear their grandmother had given them when they were five (Asher, Zay, and Dylan respectively). This was a part of someone’s identity, part of Asher’s, and Ray’s, and it being known carried a lot more weight than anything else. He understood that, and he respected it. He knew there had been a few incidents at their school, instances it would have felt belittling to just call unfortunate, and outside of school, too. If Asher and Ray didn’t want to have it be out there for all to know, that was one thing.

Somehow though, he couldn’t help but feel a little startled to find it all out like this. Why hadn’t Asher told him and the others? Did he not think they would understand, that they would reject him? All Lucas could think now, as he took it all in was that… At no time since he’d stood down on those steps and seen the two of them had he felt anything but the surprise of it, which really would be understandable. He could see plainly, when he had (accidentally) spied them that they looked as textbook ‘happy’ as anyone could get, looking into another person’s eyes as they’d done. And if they, if his friends, were happy with one another, then oh he could be nothing but absolutely thrilled for them.

So now he knew, so… what was he supposed to do with this? As far as anyone else was concerned, he shouldn’t have known about this. So, did he just have to act as though he’d seen nothing until whatever time either of them would speak up? He would just have to… One of the most important things they could all count on, in this group of friends they had cultivated together, was that they would keep one another’s secrets so long as they needed keeping, and they would do it gladly, because that was how they cared for one another.

TO BE CONTINUED


	94. His Discovery of Privacy

He had made up his mind before he’d gone and seen Maya again, after his discovery, that he wouldn’t tell her what he saw. It wasn’t about keeping secrets when it wasn’t his secret he was keeping, right? Even if she was his girlfriend and his best friend and she would have guarded it as valiantly as he would, he just couldn’t tell her.

Evidently, he hadn’t decided to keep it to himself fast enough because, almost as soon as she had seen him, she had started looking at him like she could see something was up with him. And not knowing just what that something was, she would be on the lookout for anything that might be troubling him. He couldn’t fault her for that, it was her love for him that had her sights set on him and on figuring out what was up with him.

He did his best not to give her anything that might have led her on the right track, and that would have worked just fine, if not for a book.

They were in her room, working on a project for French class, as good of a distraction as anything, and it seemed to be working well enough, because it distracted him. But then, as they were working, he picked up a book sitting on her desk, out of curiosity. And as he was staring at the cover, turning to the back for the description, Maya told him Asher had let her borrow it, and his face, his traitor face, gave a twitch, and so now she knew this something had to do with Asher.

Even if she knew this though, there was no way she would figure out the rest of it, right? It was hardly the kind of leap someone would just make, was it? Had they had a fight, she asked. No. Was something wrong with him? No. But something had happened, something…

She went very quiet all of a sudden, and when he looked at her, he found her face locked in a strange sort of hesitation, like… like she wasn’t sure she could say what she was thinking? And then she got back to the French assignment, smoothly as ever, abandoning all avenues of speculation with him. And then he knew… he knew…

“You know,” he stated as it dawned on him. She looked up at him, plain faced.

“ _En français, Monsieur Friar_ ,” she tried to deflect, but that was not about to happen.

“ _J’ai vu Asher… avec Ray._ ” _I saw Asher with Ray._ She wanted French, well she got it, but now she seemed plenty satisfied in going back to English.

“What do you mean ‘with Ray?’” she asked, cautious.

“I mean kissing, at Julianne’s house on Friday.” Again, silence. “You knew already, didn’t you? Maya…”

“Okay, okay, yes, I know, I’ve known, but I swore to both of them I wouldn’t say, and you…” she pointed a finger at him, very serious now, and he held out his hands.

“I won’t say anything, I wouldn’t, just…” he tipped his hands in a way that said ‘if you know though, I can say things with you, right?’ She breathed out, so yes, he could. “How long have you known?” She shrugged, head teetering in thought.

“About a year, I guess,” she told him, and he couldn’t imagine anything could stun him more after everything, finding out about them, finding out she knew.

“A year?” he blurted out, and she waved her hands at him to quiet him.

“Back when the puppies had just been born, and I’d have to go over to Ray’s house to spend time with them, to get to know them and everything, I would go, and Asher would be there sometimes. I never thought too much of it at first, I mean they’re friends, teammates, right? What’s there to it? Except… one day I showed up earlier than planned, Ray’s mother let me in, I went to find him and…” she shrugged again, which he took to mean she’d come upon a similar scene, as he’d done at the party.

Only, in her case, it hadn’t gone unnoticed. There’d been no moment for Maya to back off unseen, and thus the cat had been let out of the bag… or the closet.

“We all just stood there for a minute, no one sure what to say. I guess they weren’t sure how I’d react, so I knew they didn’t want anyone to know, and I promised I wouldn’t tell. And I didn’t, I mean you already knew so it doesn’t count, so long as…”

“Hey, it’s all good,” he assured her. They were both so protective of their friends, and there’d be nothing more to say on the matter, except…

“You should talk to him,” Maya said after a moment. “You know now, there’s no point in hiding it from him. Wouldn’t be right to have his secret and not let him know that you do.” She was right, he guessed, except what was he supposed to say? He hadn’t meant to spy on them, it had just happened.

“Does anybody else know?” he asked now, wondering if he might be having the same dance with anyone else as he’d done when he’d first shown up here today. “Joey? Dylan?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure. It’s not like I’ve questioned him or anything. Whatever I know, it’s not up to me to decide what he wants others to know, I just…” she shrugged, sort of apologetically, but he understood.

“Alright,” he nodded, to himself, to her. “I… I’ll talk to him.” If he couldn’t be sure anyone else knew, he’d have to find a way to talk to him alone. He had a thought. “You guys are working tonight at the diner, right?” She nodded. “Think you can keep Nadine busy for a bit around closing time?”

TO BE CONTINUED


	95. His Discovery of Truth

Every so often, which was really more like ‘more often than not,’ Lucas would go and hang around the diner on the evenings where Maya worked the closing shift, so he could drive her home afterward. That night was no exception, even though the purpose for this visit wasn’t reserved solely to his wanting to get his girlfriend home safely.

He gave no indication of what was on his mind as he walked into the diner that day, hours after he’d spoken with Maya. Asher and Nadine were both working there, too, and as they were really close to closing time now, there was hardly anyone else left. This made it that much easier for them to do other little things around the diner and, in Lucas’ case, it allowed for one of them to be pulled aside in private. Maya was already seeing to keeping Nadine occupied elsewhere, so he could go up to Asher.

“Hey,” he came up when Lucas neared the counter, across from where he stood. He was gathering up a garbage bag, tugging at the corners to tie it shut, the better to go and dump it in the back.

“Need a hand?” he nodded to the other bag. Asher shrugged, because of course he was able to carry both bags on his own, but it didn’t mean he would refuse some assistance. So, Lucas picked up the second bag and the two of them made their way out the back to put the trash in the dumpster. Soon as that was done, Asher moved to head back inside, but Lucas stopped him. “I need to tell you something.”

“Okay?” Asher stared at him like he was wondering if everything was alright with him. Lucas wondered if he looked a bit off. His head was just a bit of a mess right now, trying to figure out how to launch into the subject. It almost felt like he should be apologizing, how he’d inadvertently invaded his privacy. It wasn’t as though he could have helped it though, was it? And like Maya had pointed out, it would be something else if she kept this secret from him.

“So, at the party, at the Shelby house, bit before we all left, Maya and I were sitting outside. We’d been dancing for a while, and she was thirsty, so I went to get her a root beer. But there were none left on the table, and Scott said I could get some in the basement.” He rattled all this off, and Asher just kept on looking at him, like he wondered what was wrong with him. He couldn’t blame him. Lucas let out a breath, projecting as much of an accepting and understanding demeanor as he could muster as he forged on. “I saw you, up on the stairs, with Ray.” He didn’t have to say anything else to get his point across.

Asher’s face shifted, a silently expressed ‘ah’ forming. He didn’t look scared, or worried, just ‘there it is.’

Now that it was out there, Lucas wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. He couldn’t go and ask ‘why didn’t you tell me?’ like Asher somehow owed it to him, but he did sort of wonder. How long had they been friends, very close friends? Did he not think he could be trusted?

“Also, I… Maya knows about it. I mean I wasn’t going to tell her, but she figured it out because… well, she already knew. She suggested I should talk to you.”

“Yeah, she’s been good like that,” Asher couldn’t help but smile, and Lucas nodded. “I would have told you, all of you, eventually, I just… it’s complicated.”

“I kind of figured,” Lucas replied, which was more or less the truth. If he had a poker face, it wasn’t working today, because his questions appeared as clear on his face as anything, as Asher picked up and started talking again.

“I wasn’t trying to keep things from you guys, you know? I guess I always just sort of knew I wasn’t into girls, that I liked boys, but… It was always just sort of like… me,” he shrugged. “There was never really anything to it, and it wasn’t like there was someone out there I was into, so why should it matter?” He paused, his mind going somewhere, and wherever it went, it was to a good place. “Then we started high school, we joined the basketball team, and that was when I first got to know Ray, and I swear, I… I saw him, and all of a sudden there _was_ something to these feelings I’d been keeping to myself. I was going to tell you guys, I was. I was a bit all over the place, and I didn’t even know for sure if he was going to be… But then, it just… we got started, and it’s a long story, but then I couldn’t tell you anymore.”

Whatever had prevented him from telling them, Lucas could see Asher wasn’t at ease telling him, either here or now, and he didn’t force it out of him.

“Does anybody else know? Except Maya and me?” Asher shook his head. “Not even Joey?”

“No,” Asher confirmed with another shake of the head that seemed to indicate this was something he remotely regretted. The reasoning, here again, remained his alone to know. Asher was looking at him now, a small sort of realization playing over his face. Up to this point, only Ray and Maya had known, and now someone else knew, and it seemed to make him glad. Lucas gave him a tip of the head: all was well. “Hey, so Ray’s coming to hang out at my house after I’m done here, maybe you and Maya would like to join us? Watch a movie?”

“Yeah,” Lucas agreed at once, then after a beat he reached out and pulled his friend into a hug, and Asher hugged him back.

TO BE CONTINUED


	96. His Discovery of Issues

Lucas had left with Maya, taking her home so she could change before they made their way to the Garcia house. They both figured Asher would let Ray know in the time in between about how Lucas now knew about them, and that was part of the reason why the four of them were all hanging out together that evening. He saw he’d had it right as he and Maya came through the door and Ray was there, looking back at them with an open sort of look on his face, silently displaying his acknowledging of the new inclusion into his secret and Asher’s.

They ended up down in the basement to watch a movie. Joey was out at Rebecca’s, and Mr. and Mrs. Garcia were also out, but the basement still felt like the place to be. Before they all went though, Ray caught Lucas’ eye, asking if they might talk for a minute, so he guessed this was his chance to share his own part of the story.

Immediately, as they went through to the backyard, just him and Ray, he could sense a whole other demeanor about him. Sure, Asher hadn’t known what the conversation would be about when he’d been pulled aside, but even after he’d found out that Lucas knew about him, he’d always had this sort of ease about him. Ray was _not_ calm. Ray had tense shoulders, and Lucas thought he could see sweat brimming at his hairline. It was so unlike what he was used to see of the other boy and it made Lucas understand immediately that Asher’s story was not Ray’s, not in all things.

“Ray? You alright?”

“Yeah, no, I mean… yes, it’s just…”

Lucas couldn’t help but to start and assume some things even before Ray told his side of things. He only had to recall his talk with Asher earlier, and now to observe the slow start of his talk with Ray to figure out a thing or two. He couldn’t understand before why Asher would actually not say anything, but now he had to wonder if maybe the reason was that he meant to protect someone else. When Ray looked at him now, it seemed he knew right where his mind had gone, and so he got around to talking.

“You know I envy him sometimes,” he breathed out, looking back in the direction of the house. “He’s known who he is for a long time. Me, I just… Maybe I did know before, but… I didn’t want to know, I wanted to just be…” Whatever he thought he’d wanted to be, the words didn’t come, but they didn’t matter. “Basketball tryouts, last year, he walked into the gym, and I saw him, and it was like… the board was wiped clean, and it turns out I didn’t know anything at all.”

And there it was again, that telltale smile, the one that came with the story of a burgeoning love. But then after a moment it flattened out, a sadness attempting to invade.

“My parents are good parents, great parents. But then sometimes I hear them make comments about some things, some people, and I hate that I know it, but I do, I know… If they found out about me, that’d be the end of it. They’d have us move, or make me change schools, and that’s if they don’t just kick me out and pretend like I never existed.” Lucas wished he knew what to say, wished he could reassure him, but he knew Ray’s parents, too, and as much as he’d always been respectful to them, he couldn’t say he didn’t see them doing exactly what Ray now feared.

“Maybe…” he tried to say, but he couldn’t make himself finish the sentence. Ray looked back at him.

“I know,” he nodded. “Maybe they won’t… but that’s just a maybe.” He paused, sighing again. “I have one more year of school here. After that, I’ll be off to college, I’ll be getting a place of my own, so… I just need to wait… one more year.”

So, it was as he’d suspected. Asher’s whole reasoning, his keeping his own secret was not for his own need but for Ray’s. He wouldn’t come out and start a chain reaction that would put Ray in the spotlight. It wouldn’t take many people to connect the dots. The two of them had been close friends all this time, very close, and Lucas knew even himself… If he hadn’t seen that kiss at the party, if he’d known about Asher, it would have taken him all of a minute to stop and wonder if maybe him and his very good friend Ray were more than very good friends. And then it would get back to Mr. & Mrs. Choi. And then…

Ray could have just severed ties with Asher, he didn’t have to let it become something… He didn’t have to, so then he had no choice. He loved him… and they were stuck.

“We should go back inside,” Ray spoke after a moment, moving to the door. “Leave them alone long enough, they’ll pick the movie without us.” Lucas chuckled, and he followed Ray off to the basement, where they found Maya and Asher arguing over which movie was the best of the ones they’d pulled from the shelves. Another reason for taking to the Garcia basement was their wall of movies. It was seriously sort of impressive, the amount they had. A lot of their group would come and borrow from those shelves like it was a video store.

Eventually they made a choice and the four of them sat to watch, Asher and Ray on the couch, Maya and Lucas on the ground. In this small bit of world, where all were safe and loved, maybe this was the closest thing they could have to a double date, and Lucas liked the thought of it.

TO BE CONTINUED


	97. His Discovery of Reflection

Lucas returned home that night, after a great time with his friends, and he was happy. But as he reached his room and sat there for a moment, he couldn’t stop thinking about everything he’d seen and learned today. Asher and Ray… On the one hand he’d been completely blindsided, but on the other it very much felt like he should have known all along. Was he so blind to that possibility that he hadn’t seen it? Was this a failing of his?

Well there was no coming back on it now. He knew the truth, all of it, and he just felt… speechless, maybe humbled? To see that some of his closest friends were going through something like this, right here, and none of them had been the wiser.

He wasn’t worried for Asher, not out front. One only had to speak to him, especially if you knew him as well as Lucas did, only had to listen to him and watch him, to know that he was okay. He had no insecurities to him. He lived in secrecy, not for his own benefits but for the one he loved. To some extent, Lucas was more than well placed to empathize with this. How many months had he spent, quietly cultivating the way he felt for Maya without saying a word to anyone else, because she had asked for him to wait? It was difficult, without a doubt, but he was willing to do it, because it was her.

Asher would not say a word, not so long as Ray wasn’t in the clear.

In the clear… Did that even cover what he was going through here? Sure, nothing had happened, not yet, but it could… it would, and when it did, it could be his choice, his time, once he felt secure to do it, or it could be that his parents found out by some accident, which would throw everything into chaos, and that… that was the thing that kept Ray on edge.

That was really the part that kept twisting at his guts, this thought that parents could turn on their children for something like this. Oh, he wasn’t blind or unaware, he knew it was something that happened. He just couldn’t believe that anyone could do such a thing. And maybe it wouldn’t, maybe… That small bit of hope, that had to be as painful as it was soothing, didn’t it? To stop and tell yourself for a moment ‘maybe they won’t, maybe… maybe they’ll understand, maybe they’ll still…’ But at the same time to have that small hope pelted with repeating warnings of ‘maybe they won’t, maybe… probably…’ that swelled and multiplied until it occupied every last bit of space not held by the tiny, minuscule hope. Ray was in a much better place to be able to make wagers on that outcome, and his odds didn’t side with confidence.

Lucas wouldn’t let himself be the cause of that happening, never, not if he had any say in it. And Maya wouldn’t either, and Asher… Asher had been steadfast in this task all along, hadn’t he? But then as careful as they’d both been, Lucas _had_ seen them. What if it had been someone else who saw them, someone who might let that knowledge seep back to Mr. & Mrs. Choi? It wasn’t even his fate on the line and the thought of it scared him just enough that he felt a growing protectiveness toward his two friends.

For one brief moment of consideration, he sat there in his room, telling himself that there was a simple solution to this. Ray could just come and live here, with his family. They would be good to him, they would. And Lucas had a second bed, right there in his room that was unoccupied for the better part of the year, except for those times where Dash still climbed up and fell asleep on it. But whenever it was occupied by a human, she would go and return to her own little dog bed and all was well. He would give that bed to Ray gladly if it meant he didn’t have to live in fear and in secrecy.

But… the hope…

He was getting ahead of himself, wasn’t he? He couldn’t help it, couldn’t sit and do nothing when his friends were stuck in this kind of… Okay, he had to pull back, had to stop trying to make things happen that weren’t his to make happen. The best he could do was to know he would be there, if and/or when the situation called for it. If Ray suddenly found himself out of a home, then he could offer that possibility to him. It wasn’t even a possibility yet, not until he ran it by his parents, and he couldn’t do that without revealing the secret he’d sworn to keep, so… there they were.

It would take some getting used to, holding on to this secret, not just where the parents were involved. The rest of their group of friends was just as much in the dark as everyone else, and it would be one thing not to go talking about personal things in the midst of adults, but when it was just them, they would say things they didn’t say elsewhere, wouldn’t they?

They’d just have to find a way to adjust. They’d done it before, hadn’t they? All these months, keeping things quiet about him and Maya… Sure, by the end of it they’d come to realize most of the others already knew, that they’d just not said anything. Maybe some of them already knew about Asher and Ray and had been the good friends they were and said nothing. How was _that_ for hope?

TO BE CONTINUED


	98. His Discovery of Inclusion

A few days later, after ‘surviving’ another round of final exams, they were finally free for the summer. The school year was over, and this could only mean one thing. They were off to Chubbie’s to celebrate. The way some of them were talking, you might have thought they had just been sprung from a heavy stint in prison. Others sounded halfway sad to have to leave for all those weeks.

For Lucas, it had felt like an opportunity, although technically speaking he might have called it a culmination. This was something he’d been preparing for over the past few days. And now the pieces had fallen into place, which left only one move to make.

“Hey, guys, sorry I’m late,” he hurried up to the tables, pushed together, where the rest of the group had already gathered.

“There you are,” Maya blinked, looking up. “You just took off after that last test, I thought you were waiting.”

“Yeah, sorry, I just needed to take care of something first,” he explained, passing her a look that seemed to put her back at ease, as he had intended it to. “So I hope it’s alright I invited someone to join us,” he casually went on, explaining, “There was another opening at the museum for a tour guide, he just got the job so I’m helping him to get ready.” As he finished this explanation, up walked Ray Choi to stand at his side with a smirk on his face they might have found matched on Asher’s face, understanding things unspoken.

“Hey, guys,” he gave a small wave.

“Take a seat, my good man number 93,” Zay waved him over, moving to grab an extra chair from a neighboring table and place it in the space between him and Rebecca. It would have been easy to try and shuffle things around so that Ray and Asher would be sat side by side, but Lucas could see plainly that just sitting at the same table was fine for them.

So, they carried on, and Lucas looked around the table… tables, their little group seeming like it got bigger and livelier as months and years went on, stronger, too. Once it had been a quartet of boys, him and Zay and Asher and Dylan. And then Nadine had come into the mix, and then Maya, and then Riley, and then Joey and Rebecca, and then Scott, and now Ray. Eleven of them here in Austin, not forgetting the two in New York. Thirteen, and the opposite of unlucky.

There was never any question, when someone came along and became that much more woven into their group, like they’d always belonged there, and when they finally came into this ‘destiny’ of theirs it was always like saying ‘oh well yes, of course, this is where you’re supposed to be.’ If this kept up, they were going to need more tables, but oh he was ready for it.

Before long, the talk had passed through a number of subjects. School had been an obvious starter. Most of them were sophomores, or had been, up until that day, so even if they weren’t all in the same classes, some of them in advanced placement and others not, they were all in the same grade and had similar enough finals. Then they would look to Scott’s freshman finals as a memory of a year ago, and to Ray’s junior finals as the future to come. He only had one year to go before he graduated, and that seemed so strange to think about. Before long he’d be off to college, who knew where. In Austin, somewhere else in Texas, out of state… abroad?

Lucas _had_ thought about all that. It was sort of the impetus to his plan, to get Ray hired on at the museum, to get him into the group. Alright, so he already knew about the opening at the museum, and he could have found any other way to get him among them, but this seemed like the easiest one, and it would be beneficial for him as much as the rest of them. And it would get the ball rolling on his plan to give Ray and Asher as many chances to spend time together as possible. It wasn’t as though the group was all together all the time, but they did spend a lot of time together, time Asher should have been able to spend with the boy he loved, especially factoring this whole college situation into everything else. The two of them had only this year left before things changed, before Ray might possibly be very far away. Whether Asher would end up at the same college in two years’ time was no guarantee, but this year, at their school, _that_ was the guarantee. And so, Ray had to be one of them, and so he was.

School talk had veered into basketball talk, because how could it not? The outcome of the school’s decision had had time to become an established reality for them, they’d had no other choice but to adjust to it. Even so, they would talk about it all with that same sort of disappointment they couldn’t pretend wasn’t there. They would turn to Ray, their new tablemate, reiterating how sad they were he wouldn’t get to play through his final year at their school. But he would shrug and say he’d made his peace with it. As he told it, his parents had offered to transfer him to another school, right at the start of the whole thing, at the start of the school year, so he would get to keep on playing if he wanted to. But he had chosen to stay, no matter what it would mean for his basketball ‘career’ at his current school. Lucas didn’t have to hear the words to guess there might have been one more very important reason to make him choose to stay.

And summer, what about summer, besides working, and traditions (“Do you like camping?” Riley had asked Ray)? Some of them were going to be going away for a few days here and there throughout the vacation weeks, to visit family, or go on family trips, but for the most part they would all be together, and that was something of a relief. Then of course there was the impending birth of Maya’s twin siblings, and wouldn’t that just be the event of the summer?

After they’d finished eating, it was open to anyone’s suggestion what they might do next. A movie, at the theater or at home? Basketball, at the park or someone’s house? They could all go and grab their swimsuits and go swimming, they could do… well, pretty much anything, because they didn’t have school or schoolwork left. They _did_ have their jobs to get to in the morning, some of them anyway, but this _was_ their first night out of school, and they were willing to shoulder whatever consequences.

They’d ended up back at the Friar house, deciding they would rather be somewhere that would allow them to do whatever they chose to do next, be it watching or playing or just hanging out. Somehow it had turned into a video game pile up, some of them playing, others tagging in and taking their places every so often, giving or receiving pointers depending on their position as player or watcher. Lucas didn’t know what was funniest, watching the ones who had no idea what they were doing and panicking because of it, or the ones who revealed very intense and roaring tendencies as soon as someone put a remote in their hands. It was a loud evening and it was exhausting and it was wonderful.

By the time they all started to head off home, they all had this sort of elated feeling about them. Here came summer, off to a great start. As they left, both Asher and Ray looked to him with a silent nod full of words of gratitude. He tipped his head to them in welcome. Finally, it was just Maya and him, about to head off so he could drive her home. Before they went though, she turned to him with a smile.

“What?” he asked, smiling back.

“Nothing, just your gentle cowboyness never ceases to amaze,” she shrugged, pulling him into a hug.

“Is that right?” he chuckled, and she nodded into his shoulder.

“Got all this girlfriend pride bubbling up inside, what _will_ I do with it?” she ‘wondered’ aloud.

“I might have a few ideas,” he offered as they headed out to his car.

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear those…”

TO BE CONTINUED


	99. Her Rise in Summer

Already two weeks had gone by in this summer holiday, and Maya was as stunned at that fact as the rest of them were. Was it actually possible that so much time had passed already? No, it couldn’t possibly. And yet… and yet here they were. Of course, they had barely sat still in those two weeks, so was it really any wonder they wouldn’t have seen the time pass?

There was plenty to keep them occupied, that was for sure. All of them were still working, even more so now that the summer allowed them to increase their hours where each of their jobs permitted it. All of it would be added on to their trip fund, what parts they didn’t keep for their personal spending. It was the first summer where they didn’t get to spend nearly as much time together as they used to, but then in previous summers they had practically lived together for some periods, with how little time they actually spent apart. At least none of them were alone in these postings. Lucas and Ray were off at the museum, Zay and Joey at the theater, Riley, Rebecca and Dylan at the movies, and Nadine and Asher and Maya at the diner. Before long, the three of them would have two more added to their numbers, if only for a few weeks, while Scott had been hired on at the movie theater, much to the delight of the trio already there.

For her part, now that they knew basketball would still be out in the following school year, Maya would meet up with the rest of the Basket Cases once or twice a week, just to keep things fresh. And she would have practices with the girls of TXNY, the hype of their upcoming ‘reveal’ getting more and more present by the day. It wouldn’t be long now, not long at all…

Speaking of not long – depending on who you asked – there was the birth of her siblings, just a few weeks to go now. Watching how that knowledge would play over either of her parents was getting to be a test of her self restraint. She couldn’t laugh, right? Her father was going around like he had the biggest final exam of his life coming up and he had forgotten everything, so he needed to think, and think, and study, and practice… One night, Maya swore she heard him pacing overhead, mumbling to himself. Several times she had seen him walk into the nursery and look around, like he was trying to see if there was anything they still needed to get, even though the place was as stocked as it could get, until they added those very special items, aka the two newborns not born yet.

And then her mother, well… She just got bigger and bigger by the day, at least that was her own estimation, which was just a bit of an exaggeration, whether or not they could ever suggest it. Maya could see she was just caught up in such a swirl of different emotions. She was concerned for those babies, as much for their physical well being as for the thought of caring for the both of them once they were out here. It didn’t matter that there were three of them there to take care of the two of them, she would just worry, and they could hardly fault her for it. And for as much as she worried, she was just excited, anxious to hold those little ones in her arms and get to look at them, to show them the love she had for them.

Maya herself had been experiencing some pre-baby emotions. Hers manifested in some sharp-eared listening, for the slightest sign that her mother might alert her or Shawn that something might be happening, that she might need to go to the hospital. She was so ready to drive her there herself if need be. She’d been learning, did the tests and everything, and while some of their friends, in the same situation, had revealed themselves either anxious or unskilled drivers, Maya was apparently a natural, something she couldn’t help but occasionally gloat about.

All of that wasn’t happening yet though. Riley’s grandparents hadn’t even come yet either, although that was approaching fast. Before any of that happened, they were about to be joined for another summer of Farkle and Smackle in Texas. Maya had been to Rebecca’s, helping set things up for Smackle’s arrival the day before, just as much to help with the bed and all that but also to see if there might be any things they could benefit in getting their hands on, to make Smackle’s stay that much better. It almost felt like she was sending off her own child to live with someone else, trying to make sure they’d lack for nothing while also feeling sad they wouldn’t be at home. It might not have been a problem, having her there despite the approaching due date, but they hadn’t wanted to take any chances.

Soon it would be four years since she and her mother had moved to Texas, something very nearly on par with her siblings-to-be as far as startling realizations. Much as she no longer felt the pang in her heart over leaving New York that she used to feel, she didn’t know how not to stop and take notice whenever another year drew to a close. These years had been the best of her life, and each one that ended with her feeling that way again was as much a victory as it was something bordering on nerve-wracking. It was the only time she allowed herself to feel the tiniest bit nervous about the new one about to begin.

TO BE CONTINUED


	100. Her Rise in Anticipation

The trips to the airport weren’t exactly regular but, somehow, they were frequent enough that it would kind of feel like they had something of a routine whenever they went. This was in particular marked with the group’s visiting of the cinnamon bun cart, where they would load up, one to each, including those who had yet to land. They hadn’t really noticed how this might be so much of a thing until the woman at the cart greeted them like she remembered them. Maya guessed there was something memorable about that large of a group coming together again and again.

With their snacks in hand, they’d returned to wait for the flight out of New York to arrive, sitting and eating and talking. Maya recalled the year before, how things hadn’t exactly been like routine, not with her own trip and how it had gotten things sort of switched around in consequence. This year though, everything was as it should have been, even if they’d had to make that one small change about where Smackle would be staying. It wasn’t like it was an obligation, for her to stay at their house, but… Well, maybe Maya wished she still had her summer roommate.

This summer wasn’t going to be like any summer – whether ‘any summer’ was actually a thing with all of them. There was always something different, something new. This summer though, it was all so filled with changes and new things. Her siblings being born, her band being revealed to the world… or their area of Austin at least. Maybe for all that, she wished she could still have Smackle staying with them, but it would all be alright. She’d be in the city, and that’d already be something. Sometimes she could barely believe how they hadn’t always been as close of friends as this.

“What’s their flight number again? There’s new delays,” Asher pointed to the board, and everyone turned to look.

“No, we’re good,” Lucas shook his head. “They’re still on time.” He was excited, too, and that made her smile. He couldn’t wait for Farkle to come… his brother from another mother, another father, another whole entire life. Those two were still the most unexpected outcome of her relocation, and it sort of made her happy to think she had enabled their introduction to one another, these two boys who’d held such a special place in her life, for their own reasons.

After what felt like an eternity, Farkle and Smackle’s flight was inbound, coming in to land, and the cluster of friends moved to await them. It was the first year where they weren’t accompanied by any of their parents to make the drive to and from the airport. She had her parents’ car, and Lucas as well, and then Ray, too, and with those they had come together, eleven of them ready to welcome two more. Ray and Scott didn’t really know Farkle and Smackle that well, if at all, but they were part of the group now, and Maya knew it was high time they bridged that gap.

“There!” both Dylan and Riley spotted their friends coming along, the old sign waving in the air, the truest part of their airport routine.

Even with how they all often spoke via video chat, it would always be something of a shock to come face to face with their faraway friends, see how they had grown since the last time they’d been together. It might not have been so evident if they’d all been together, but they hadn’t been and so it was. Maya wondered what change the two of them saw in the group.

“I don’t know you,” Smackle declared as she spotted the two boys standing the furthest out of the small crowd hovering about for welcomes.

“Isadora Smackle, Farkle Minkus… Scott Shelby, Ray Choi,” Lucas made the introductions.

“Oh,” Smackle looked to Riley when Scott’s name was said aloud, prompting the other girl to quickly try and silence her before she said anything that shouldn’t be said aloud. In many a ‘band practice’ they’d held online, Scott’s name had developed something of a presence, and Maya was finding it difficult to keep from chuckling at Smackle’s recognition and Riley’s panic.

“We’ve heard a lot about you,” Ray declared to the two arrivals.

“You were on the basketball team, you were the one with the dogs,” Farkle recalled, and Ray nodded.

The two remaining cinnamon buns were passed on to their intended recipients, who ate them gladly as they waited for their bags. Once they left the airport, Maya would drive herself and Riley, and Smackle, and Rebecca to this last one’s house, while Lucas drove himself and Farkle, and Zay, and Nadine to his own house, so the visitors could settle in. In the meantime, Ray would drive himself, and Asher and Joey, and Dylan, and Scott over to the Matthews house, to help with last preparations for the small party they were hosting as a welcome.

In the car Maya drove, the conversation had inevitably turned to TXNY and its upcoming reveal. They had most of the band there, which had led to Riley’s inquiry as to whether Rebecca might want to join in. Smackle pointed out that it wouldn’t necessarily be wise to make changes to the lineup so close to their first gig (with air quotes on the last word), and Rebecca insisted she was happy being their groupie, which Maya could see registered as relief on Smackle’s face, like she had briefly feared a conflict that would leave her turned out of her summer lodgings. But all was well, and so on they went, the car filled with songs of the soon to be not so secret band.

TO BE CONTINUED


	101. Her Rise in Spotlight

It was a good thing they had a few days before that first ‘gig’ of theirs, to spend time with their guests, but also to practice. It was the first chance they got to bring all the pieces of TXNY together, all the members, and the instruments, everything in one room, no computers involved… It was surreal to say the least, and Maya couldn’t deny she was a tiny bit nervous about how the first performance would go. Her nerves didn’t have anything to do with the skills of her bandmates, no. Riley, Smackle, Nadine, they were all on top of their game, and so was she, and when they all got together and started doing some of their songs as they would before an audience, it felt… right.

Their first audience consisted of three dogs who would either sit and watch them curiously, or walk around their legs like this was any other day, or would try and bark their way into a song collaboration… But it was a start, wasn’t it?

Their second audience, as it was bound to, consisted of their friends, the ones in the know already, which now included Ray. So that put the four of them in front of nine human beings who could express their opinions on the matter much better than Ghost, Queen, and Tuck ever could. Of course, it was hard to gauge just how well they did or didn’t do, as their friends were sort of biased.

Their third audience wouldn’t necessarily be so prone to showering them with compliments. That would be the big one, the ‘gig’ audience. Maya couldn’t stop hearing Smackle’s voice whenever she thought of the word and it would make her smirk to herself.

They had all spent a lot of the last several weeks trying to figure out where they would get to make their debut. There were two avenues at their disposal really. On the one hand, any number of their school friends would be having parties over the summer, and it would take very little to convince them to let the band play there. Zay had already booked them for the Babineaux family party, but that was weeks away, and they wanted it to be sooner, the better to have more opportunities to play with the four of them in the same city. The other option was to look for opportunities where it wasn’t just their friends. Chubbie’s, for example, often hosted live musical acts, and they didn’t even have to be well known at all, though it remained to be seen if they would host an act that was… well, not known at all, save for a dozen or so kids and some of their parents.

The idea was for the knowledge of their existence to reach more people, right? For sure, they would be making some video recordings, getting them on YouTube, across social media, whatever worked. But their local presence, that was one of the most important things to them, so that was what they had to focus on getting started.

Finally, it had been Smackle who had settled the matter for them. As she pointed out, a lot of their schoolmates went to Chubbie’s, too, especially when live bands played. If they played there, and their schoolmates saw them, they might invite them to play at parties, and that would get them in both doors at once. So that was that. Now they just needed to actually book it, didn’t they?

This had proven to be more complicated as they’d believed it would be, and they had believed it would be pretty hard. The one in charge of booking the bands had definitely been doubtful of a handful of teenage girls coming in off the street and asking him for a spot. He had dismissed them again and again, adding that even if he was willing to take them on, there’d be nothing for months.

They had done their best to keep the whole thing to themselves. They didn’t want to need to have their parents, or any others, coming in and trying to speak for them. This was their band, their hard work put to the test, and they were going to figure this one out on their own.

The day Maya got the call – because her number had been the one they’d left, time and again – that they had been booked for the following Friday evening, she’d almost fallen off her chair. She had no idea what had turned things around like this, not at first. She’d been too busy rushing off to tell the other girls – all of them just as shocked and excited, in their own ways – and then going to tell their friends next. Only then did she solve the mystery.

Much as he tried to play innocent, when she saw the ‘shock’ on Asher’s face, she knew he was already aware. So, he confessed the part he’d played in their getting the spot at Chubbie’s. It so happened that he’d been there a couple days before, picking up lunch for himself and Ray, when he’d witnessed one of the girls’ failed pitches to the man in charge.

“What have I been telling you for like four years, Maya Hart? _Connections_ ,” he grinned at her, right before she pulled him into a crushing hug he accepted gladly.

“You’re one quality human, Asher Garcia, you know that?” she told him.

“Hey, it’s my burden to bear,” he joked, and she laughed, right before the reality of things hit her like a bolt of lightning. It was happening… Within days, people would get to listen to them play, meeting the great band TXNY… They had to be as ready as ready could be…

TO BE CONTINUED


	102. Her Rise in Nerves

Friday felt like a spinning vortex of panic, from bright and early in the morning. The band had slept over at Rebecca’s house, Nadine having rightly pointed out how all of them would be nervous wrecks on the night before and the morning of their first show together, so… they might as well be nervous wrecks together, right?

They had taken forever to get to sleep. Nervousness had been one thing, but then it had led to this question and that question, and this doubt, and that fear… The sequence of their set list had been argued to death, what needed to be their first song, and the last, and the rest of them in between. There were then three or four times where they would just go and try to sleep again, and always, always, someone would say something – two of those times Smackle – and they’d just be right back where they’d started, and no closer to sleep.

Finally, though, _finally_ , they had managed to stop and go to sleep. They hadn’t exactly stayed that way for very long, all things considered, but there just came a point where they would be lying there, trying to get back to sleep but knowing all too well that it just wasn’t going to happen. So, they got up and stayed that way. It turned out to be for the best though. It was still very early, and Rebecca’s moms were still sleeping, lucky them, so this had led to the five girls very carefully grabbing food and sneaking off into the backyard for an outdoor sunrise breakfast. For whatever the wait and the day would leave them feeling, that moment would be the one they could go back to, remembering that moment of peace.

“We should totally call our album that,” Riley declared. “Sunrise Breakfast,” she intoned.

“We have an album now?” Nadine chuckled.

“Well, we will, won’t we? After tonight, people will want our songs… Right?”

“If not people, then our parents at least,” Maya pointed out, unsure if she meant it as a joke or as some self-defeatist jab.

“I could write a song called that,” Smackle pitched in, and as Tessa and Siobhan Fitz had woken up that morning, they’d come to find their daughter and her friends sat outside, laughing as they improvised a song called Sunrise Breakfast.

It had all been sort of downhill as far as keeping calm after that, as the hours ticked forward, taking them closer and closer to the evening and their show. It had started when the texts started coming in, from classmates and ex-teammates, who had seen the small poster notice at Chubbie’s, featuring Smackle’s logo for the band, which they knew from those shirts they had seen them wear every so often, and of course the photo of the four of them.

Shawn had taken that for them, saying that they needed to have official images. The photo shoot had been a good day, all of them having trouble keeping ‘serious’ faces and not letting any giggles come out. But finally, they had gotten some genuinely good shots, one of them joined to the logo and sent to the man at Chubbie’s, who had created the notice. Later, they would all take their pictures standing next to that notice on the wall, and Asher would get them a copy of the printout itself, for them to hold on to, for nostalgic purposes…

For now, though, the thing they knew was that, although they hadn’t actually had their first show yet, people knew about them. It was real, it was happening… it was terrifying. The morning featured an unhealthy amount of doubting the entire existence of their band. What were they thinking? Why did they think they could do this? What if this sucked? What if it was so bad they could never show their faces again?

They had been set back on track by Katy Hart, descending on the Fitz residence with no time for panic attacks and all the time in the world to remind them that they were legitimately doing well, using some words that made the girls lock to attention, having gotten reprimanded for using them in the past. If nothing else, it taught them that there were times when those words, when used, could knock some sense into them. All at once, they were back on track.

The afternoon had been a lot of running around, from home to home, to figure out how each of them would look, what clothes they’d wear, how they’d do their hair… They’d taken care of Smackle at Rebecca’s house, then they’d gone to Nadine’s to take care of her, then to Riley’s, and finally to Maya’s. By the time they were done, and ready, they needed to start thinking about heading down to Chubbie’s, to prepare, and set up, and then wait… and try not to lose it.

The closer they came to the time they were set to go on stage, Maya felt her legs get a bit wobbly, a chill persisting at her spine, and an inescapable amount of sweat. Their friends had arrived now, and it would have been so tempting for her to go and find Lucas, have him do his Huckleberry thing and make her feel better, but no… She had to pull herself together, she knew she could do it, and she would do it. Their families were there, too. And there were a lot of other kids from school. The man who’d been so doubtful to book them in the first place was now eating his words, which in the end was the thing to give them the final push of courage. They could do it. They were ready. And it was time… TXNY was about to take the stage.

TO BE CONTINUED


	103. Her Rise in Glory

If not for the sweat in her palms, she would have thought for sure this was all a dream, as she stepped up on that stage. Sure, she had been up there before, on her own even, but that had been different, that had been one song here, one song there, one step off from karaoke. _This_ was something else, it was her, and Riley, and Nadine, and Smackle, going up there and saying ‘this is us, this is what we made, please like it.’ On the outside, she was sure she looked confident. She definitely put all her strength into appearing that way, even as she felt this warmth in her like she was overheating for the beat of her heart that was just… out of control. This was it, this was it, this was…

There was whistling in the gathered audience, actually a short call, and as soon as she heard it, Maya knew what it was and who had made it and why. Lucas… This wasn’t the basketball court, but it had the same power. It said, even if she couldn’t see him, it said… I’m here, I’m rooting for you, you’ve got this. And as her next breath filled her lungs it expended, until it felt her head had cleared the clutter out of there, pushing out last second jitters until what was left was her, and her friends, and their music. She stepped up to the microphone, she looked to the people gathered… There were so many of them… She looked across all of them there and declared that they were TXNY, and with the click of drumsticks, the music rose around them and they were off.

The first song they did was in fact the most recent of Smackle’s compositions, but really, they couldn’t have asked for a better place for them to start from. Whatever expectations or lack of expectations the people stood around them might have had about what this band they’d never heard before would sound like… This song taught them what they were in for, and to say it was a good lesson, they only had to take in the evolution of their audience’s reaction as they listened and watched. They were actually kind of good, some would say more than good.

Maya had to let herself get lost in the music, not in the audience, or things would derail. She wanted to look to the others, see their reaction as they understood their audience was with them, that they weren’t about to get booed off the stage or pelted with vegetables or rotten things, which had been one such fear they’d turned around more than once. She wanted to see the fear gone from them now, but she couldn’t look, so she didn’t. She gave herself over to the music and lyrics as made for them by Isadora Smackle, presently somewhere behind her.

After these few weeks where the girl was here, Maya and Riley and Nadine would have to figure out what it would be like to perform just the three of them, once Smackle returned to New York, but that didn’t matter, not now. They had waited until this precise moment to present themselves to the world because it was crucial that they started out at full capacity, and this was a band of four, whether people would see it or not. They already had started filming ‘music videos’ for their songs while they were all together, to be uploaded online over time. They wouldn’t make those with only three of them, no.

She had not nominated herself as their lead singer, not specifically. But they had been practicing, for weeks, together or on the computer, and even as they’d all sing together, it would seem the others’ voices would take a step back and allow her to stand out front, and as they did so it all felt like it was coming together, taking the songs Smackle had written and molding them to the four of them, their instruments, their voices, together and apart, and with Maya’s voice dominating, that was when it all really worked the best. That didn’t mean the others didn’t get their moments, or that they were few and far in between. Each one of them would weave in and out, together and apart. Maya couldn’t imagine those songs with any of them missing… She would have to, but they weren’t there yet. Right now, it was all four of them.

The songs were unveiled to their eager audience, one after the other, and before long their first show, which had felt so big and far away not long ago, which had been this impossible thing, was now drawing closer and closer to being over. And to their amazement, by the time they had put out their last song, they were asked for more. It had been such an unexpected thing that they had not really planned for this, but it had resolved itself easily enough in the end. It wasn’t as though they had never played other songs together, as they were practicing, or just having fun together.

Maya could look at them now, her friends, her bandmates, and they all had that same sort of look on their faces, probably the same thing that was in her own head. Had this really happened? This wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t, but it was still just so unreal… and so wonderful.

They played a couple more songs before finally they were good and done. No going back now, soon it wouldn’t just be the people in this room knowing about them, people would talk… This was the start, chapter one… Maya was all in for chapter two… verse two.

TO BE CONTINUED


	104. Her Rise in Music

She was still floating on the high of what they’d just done when she stepped off the stage along with the rest of the band, heading into the back. Maya could have easily believed she had granted herself the ability to float, or fly, as she landed in the waiting arms of Lucas, stood there with the rest of their friends, all of them anxious to talk to the quartet of TXNY.

“So, are you going to brag about having an in with the band now?” she teased him.

“Oh, all the time,” he promised, closing them off as best he could into some amount of privacy as he leaned in to kiss her. As far as she was concerned, the moment he held her like that, the rest of the world slipped away out of existence, but the same unfortunately could not be said for the opposite, and as they pulled back again, they shared a smirk before he stepped around, standing at her side with his arm around her shoulders.

She could see Nadine had received a similar greeting by way of Zay, while Smackle had her own version of it with Farkle. And Riley… Maya almost felt bad for all these displays, when she could only stand there, quietly pining for the boy stood not too far off. They really needed to attend to this Scott Shelby situation. She was just about certain he felt the same way for Riley as she did for him, but for now they remained just a pair of friends and nothing more.

“So how was it out there, what did you hear?” Maya asked, hoping to break the tension.

“I think they really liked you guys,” Rebecca reported.

“I heard some people talking about the songs,” Dylan added. “They wondered in the beginning who sang those originally. And then the more of them you all did, they must have realized it was you girls that did,” he went on, looking primarily to Smackle, who had the funniest sort of pride bursting from her face.

“They’ll know who wrote them soon enough,” Maya declared, sharing in her friend’s pride.

Now that it had actually started, all of it, not only started but started well, it made getting things in motion that much more important, to each other as much as to anyone out there who might have wanted to hear their songs again, get to know them as a band. She wondered what it would be like when they all went back to school in the fall.

“We should try and get a few more shows done while Smackle’s still here,” Riley told them, and on this they were all very much in agreement.

“Well you’ll have my family party, and we Babineaux are very supportive of the local art scene,” Zay informed them, getting a few appreciative laughs from the band.

“And you won’t need to argue much more to play again here,” Asher added, “Won’t need to be so ‘connected.’”

“Leave it to my mother, she’ll have you guys doing world tours by year’s end,” Lucas joked, though Maya had a feeling it wasn’t too far off from what might actually be possible. Melinda Friar was exceptionally active when it came to supporting her son’s friends, and none more than his girlfriend.

Now that the show was over, Maya was almost overwhelmed by the mix of feelings coursing through her. She was exhausted but she was also too awake to even think of sleeping. She was starving, finally, after having been so nervous all day that she could barely eat. She was so happy that things had worked out the way they did, but she was also nervous, the new possibilities opened to them now feeling sort of overwhelming… She needed to let some of it out and she didn’t know how.

“Let’s get out of here,” she found herself saying, looking around at her friends. “You guys want to go to the park or something?”

“I want pancakes…” Riley declared.

“Ma Maggie’s, then the park,” Nadine suggested, and that settled it.

“What about your families?” Smackle asked, pointing back to wherever they would all be.

“I’ll take care of it,” Scott volunteered himself. “You guys go ahead, I’ll catch up,” he went on before disappearing through the door back into Chubbie’s proper.

“You heard him, let’s go,” Maya beamed, getting hold of Lucas’ hand as they went, then stopping and looking to Riley. “Why don’t you wait for him, so he doesn’t have to hurry off on his own,” she offered, and Riley agreed at once, cheeks reddening just a bit at her suddenness.

So, the rest of them had started off, exiting out the back and starting on their way to the pancake house. The evening air was nice and cool, and breathing it in, Maya felt a bit of that release she’d been seeking. Walking along, she felt more and more of it.

They’d been walking at a casual pace, so that by the time Riley and Scott came jogging up toward them, they were only halfway to the restaurant. They kept to their pace, talking about the show, their favorite moments, favorite songs… Most of them had spent the whole time of the show with their phones or cameras up, taking pictures, or filming the whole thing. By the time they were all packed around a few tables pushed together at Ma Maggie’s, they were looking through those. Maya loved seeing it all, getting to see not only how they looked collectively but also – finally – the others and how the experience of their reveal had played out for them. Riley’s giddiness, Nadine’s intensity… She had never seen Smackle seem so at ease.

“I need to have this one framed on my wall,” Lucas said, showing her one picture, all four of them well in their moment, with her there in the forefront, the glow of music inhabiting her, bursting from her…

“Better make two copies,” she smiled.

TO BE CONTINUED


	105. Her Rise in Peace

They’d gone and gotten their pancakes, marching off toward the park with their bags and settling in at their favorite spot. They ate, and talked, and laughed… After the thrill of the show, Maya could not think of a better way to finish out the night. In the end, they started splitting off toward home, all except Nadine and Zay, who volunteered to go back and gather up their instruments and take them away along with their parents. Maya went on to catch her bus home, escorted by Lucas. They split off at her door and she watched him walk off for a moment before going into the house.

Her mother and father were back, too, sat on the couch, her mother’s feet propped up in her father’s lap, so he might massage them.

“There you are,” her mother looked back at her, smiling.

“Yeah, sorry about disappearing back there, lot of energy after the show, had to just let it out,” Maya explained, coming up to crouch behind the couch, arms dangling over the back, where her mother could clasp her hands. “So… what did you think?” she asked, trying not to sound overly eager for them to say they loved it. “Be honest, okay? I don’t want you guys just saying good things because it’s me and you love me and everything.”

“Us? We would never,” her father declared like he was shocked she would even suggest it, which made her smirk. The look on his face was saying it plainly though: he was about to speak the truth. “You guys were really something out there, I mean really. I’ve heard you guys practice… a lot… Tonight, you were all at another level. Remember the first time I heard you four together? Well it was like that, except… ten times more,” he explained, and she couldn’t help but smile, maybe even blush a bit for the pride that rose in her heart.

“The pictures we took looked so good on those little posters, didn’t they?” she asked, beaming.

“Hey, I know my way around a camera… You guys were what made those shots great though.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she told him, and for a moment both of them just smiled, looking at one another. If ever a moment like this stopped having such an effect on them… well, it wasn’t going to happen. There was no forgetting where they’d come from, and what it meant for them to be where they were now and to get to say those two words. It was as powerful as getting to hear them. Maya moved over so she could put her arms around her father’s neck, and he held her back as best he could in the position they were in, minding that he didn’t pull her over and to crash on top of Katy.

“Hey, give me some of that,” she requested after a few seconds, and Maya laughed, releasing her father to now embrace her mother, who gave as good as she got with the hugs. “You’re a real rock star, baby girl,” she whispered at her ear, and Maya felt for a moment like she would just go and start to cry in her mother’s arms, for how happy she was making her. Here she’d thought she had reached the pinnacle of how good this night could be. If she hadn’t known any better, she would have started getting suspicious that it might have been too good to be real.

“I’m going to go shower and draw for a while,” she told them, knowing they would have expected as much. There was no way she could go through such a night and not feel the need to put it to paper, an explosion of colors to stand in for the explosion of notes, melodies and harmonies and just so many other things she had not known music could make her feel. She was exhausted, but she had to do it while the feeling was still in her to be expressed.

After her shower, which went a long way to waking her up a little again, she brought her sketchbook and pencils to her bed, sitting there, keeping her still damp hair out of the way as she set pencil to paper and got to work, expressing all the things that were running through her mind at the moment. In those times, it almost felt like she went into automatic mode, gave control of herself over to the drawing taking shape before her. On this night in particular, maybe for the exhaustion of it all, when she finally stopped, it felt like she’d blacked out, unaware to the time that may have passed. But when she looked at the page, she smiled. That was it… that was the night…

The pencils were set back in their box, which was left on her desk, while her sketchbook was propped up there, kept open, so that she could look at it still as she got into bed. She didn’t expect to be looking at it for very long, knew she’d be asleep almost as soon as she put herself in the position to be, but she didn’t mind. She wanted to have that drawing there, a memory of this night, sort of looking after her as she went to sleep, maybe filling her dreams with more of all the things she’d been feeling.

Two summers ago, that was when they had first started talking about making a band. It had just seemed like something they joked about at the time, not something they would actually do. But then the idea had refused to be completely forgotten, hadn’t it? And it refused to die, and it refused to be ignored, and then it had become a little more real, but even then… even then she could never have imagined it would become this, become the four of them on a stage, in front of all those people, singing songs that were their own, and actually having those songs be appreciated by people.

But they had… Oh how they had… There was no telling what that little idea would turn into next, but seeing how it had persisted all this time, Maya found that, like learning to hope, like finding dreams could come true… The potential of their band felt endless that night, and whether or not it would be, she didn’t actually care, not now. Now she was happy, over the moon, and there would be no bringing her down.

She got into bed, her pillow feeling like the most wonderful thing in the world as soon as her head came to meet it, and soon her body relinquished the barriers it had maintained against sleep, which came to collect her and carry her away to the world of dreams.

Under the influence of the memories captured in the sketchbook sitting open on her desk, maybe, or simply the memories still deep in her mind, her dreams were just as she would have hoped them to be, all of it but something more, too.

She couldn’t say what time it was when she awoke all of a sudden, never actually looked at the time, but she reached for the sketchbook and one pencil and, across the page opposite to the drawing, she started to scribble, not images but words. They spilled from her like everything that was now on the page next to it, an expression of everything she was feeling, in the shape of a song… They were just words, and she had no music to join to them, not as of yet, but it didn’t matter. She reached for her phone and she took a picture, of the two pages together, before sending it to Riley, and Nadine, and Smackle. No need for explanation.

Her mind relieved of the thing that had needed her to wake up so much, she soon fell back to sleep. It almost felt like she had been sleep-writing, come morning. She had sort of forgotten she had done it, until she saw the messages from the rest of the band. Riley loved it. Nadine loved it. Smackle loved it… and was already working to compose music to go along with it. Their first collaboration. She also said that, if they ever put out an album, then the drawing on the opposite page had to be its cover.

TO BE CONTINUED


	106. Their Summer of Success

The week that followed the first show and subsequent introduction of TXNY to people outside their circle of friends and families was something of a whirlwind. It wasn’t as though they were suddenly world famous, or famous at all. But people knew about them now and, beyond all expectations they might have allowed themselves to entertain, they liked them… they liked them enough to follow them. Their online presence was established over the day that followed the show, and they had figured it would take some time before anyone really noticed.

Two days after the show, they had a hundred followers.

Sure, a chunk of that was their friends, their families, the basketball teams and other school friends, but even after that, it left plenty of others, and they had initially thought it had to be nothing real, just random followers. But the messages that came with those unknowns proved that no, they were not random. They had been to the show.

It had been Dylan. Their notice was still up at Chubbie’s, and so he had gone and scribbled the link to their pages there on the sheet.

When they’d seen how they held people’s attention, they knew that the best they could do was to ride that wave before it spent itself. The first video went up on that second day. Two days later, their followers had doubled, tripled, and the quadrupling was on the horizon. They weren’t too far off from holding confidence that they’d break five hundred by the time a quarter of their band flew off back home.

For the four of them, it was just madness, ecstatic madness. Before long, their reach had spread and expanded past the city, past the state, past the country and continent. Every time they saw one of these milestones go by, it felt like they were dreaming, but even without a pinch they knew they were wide awake, and this was all marvelously real.

It wasn’t long they also had to deal with the flip side of this rise, in the form of some more unsavory comments. Maya had been the first to see them, and she’d been confident Nadine would be able to deal with them well enough, shrugging them off as much as she did, Smackle, too, in her own way. It was Riley she worried about, enough that she had hurried to rally the other two, and Rebecca, and the boys, as soon as possible to ensure she wouldn’t see anything on her own.

She’d shrugged when she’d seen, showing agreement with them that it meant nothing, but Maya knew her too well to believe this was completely true, and Farkle did, too. Her oldest friends, they had set themselves to putting her mind at ease, and Maya was truly relieved that he had still been here in Austin when this all happened, the better for the pair of them to encircle Riley with knowing arms. They weren’t entirely alone in all this, as they came to discover. Dylan had shown that observant side Maya had first come to know shortly after her arrival in Texas, when he’d understood the situation with her and her father, and he showed it here again, being for Riley what she might have been for any one of them if _they_ had been going through something like this. And then there was Scott… He had not been long to show his protective side, the thought of anyone making Riley feel bad being as wrong as things could get. Maya knew it wouldn’t exactly tip the scales a hundred percent, but it was another reason for Riley to smile, and they could never have too many of those, could they?

After that whole mess, the best thing that could happen was a surge. The second video? It had gone viral. By the end of that first week, their miracle had gotten its own miracle, and five hundred had been reached once, twice… ten times… Five thousand… They would have believed someone was pulling a fast one on them if they couldn’t see the proof that it was not a prank at all.

As an experiment, they had put things together to start selling shirts with the logo Smackle had made and printed to the shirts they had been wearing for a year. The agreement was made that, whatever they earned through those that was theirs to keep, half would go toward the graduation trip, and the other half would be kept for them, for band expenses. This was on the off chance that the shirts actually sold, and that remained to be seen.

They were also looking to start selling their album. This would include all the songs Smackle had written, music and lyrics, already, and as an added track, the one song credited with music from Isadora Smackle and lyrics by Maya Hart. After receiving that middle of the night picture, Smackle had made quick work of composing music to go with the words, and what came of it was something Maya couldn’t help but to be so beyond proud of. She had forgotten she’d even written it until she’d woken up the morning after the show and seen the sketchbook there on her desk, and it could all have been little more than delirious ramblings, but it actually wasn’t.

“It’s not going to be the same when you’re not up there with us, you know?” Maya had told Smackle, after they’d listened to her perform the new song for them. Smackle had smiled at this, but also provided them with reassurance. No matter if it was three of them up there or four, no matter where they all were, they would always have this band of theirs to bind them together.

TO BE CONTINUED


	107. Their Summer of Songs

It was a sort of official/unofficial permission they had, to use Maya’s mother’s theater as a practice space, when the stage was free… The unofficial part was when either Zay or Joey would use their keys to let them in, just as today. They could use the instruments right there instead of lugging their own around, and save for the presence of an audience, it was the closest thing they could get to the real thing, so how could they say no to that?

Inevitably this would all become much more than band practice, as the whole of their group would be there, sat on the stage or in the seats at one time or another. Lucas’ spot tended to be sat there on the stage, even as the band played, one leg dangling over the edge, the other folded in. He wouldn’t admit outright that when the band played he only ever really saw Maya up there, but it was plain to see to anyone who watched him, and one look at that face, all smiles and heart eyes, and they could fault him in no way. For her part, she could hardly acknowledge his presence or she would risk losing her focus, even as knowing he was there, watching her, it felt like she could do no wrong and so she went on singing, went on strumming and performing, as though all those seats in the auditorium below were packed to overcapacity.

When they stopped to take a break, she would dart to go and sit with him, and they would talk animatedly about this song and that song… It was as sickeningly sweet as it was plain adorable.

“Uh, guys,” Zay would clear his throat, calling their attention back and away from one another after a while. “We have to clear out soon,” he informed them, nodding toward the exits.

Leaving out the back of the theater, they reconvened at the diner. It was here that, a few days ago, the girls had first been recognized by a stranger who came up, saying they’d loved the show and their music. It was another bit of surreal activity they were still getting used to. It had happened a couple other times since, not counting classmates who’d come say hello. They had to wonder how long it would be before their naysayers came to do the same, although plenty of them ran under the assumption they’d never actually have the guts to say it to their faces.

“Hey so guess what,” Zay spoke up as they all sat around two booths that faced each other, allowing their ever-growing numbers to sit together without being corded in elbow to elbow. “Joey’s got some news,” he went on, before turning to his friend and co-worker. The quieter of the Garcia twins turned back to him with an uneasy face. “I nudge because I care. Go on, tell them.” Joey Garcia had been known to rival a stone statue when put in the spotlight, which stood in complete opposition to his activities and his desires. He’d done choir at school, he was doing debate, and drama now, and working at the theater, all with the knowledge that it could help him grow more at ease with that spotlight, because the stage had always called to him, much as he struggled to go anywhere near it. And now…

“I… I auditioned for a play… at the theater, in the fall. I got the part,” he revealed after a few moments. The twin booths erupted in reactions, in amazement and congratulations, and a bit more amazement. They could see that, apart from Zay, both Asher and Rebecca had known, of course, although maybe they only knew about the audition, not about the outcome of it, until now.

“You’re going to do the play and school and everything?” Maya asked, smiling at him as she now understood her mother had known about all this already and been keeping it quiet.

Katy Hart had been so proud to champion her daughter’s friends at the theater, and the gamble she’d made in bringing them along had more than paid off. Even if Zay didn’t turn out to be the thespian or the scribe she might have seen him become, he was an integral part of their team. But Joey… Joey had surprised them all, peaking out of his shell now and again, more and more and yet never giving any sign as though he would one day shed his shy side entirely. It was never going to stop surprising them whenever his voice would rise anywhere above the quiet one he’d always spoken with.

Now over the summer they had more time to dedicate to their work at the theater, and the season’s activities certainly kept them as busy as ever, helped them put more to their trip funds. On top of that though, Maya knew the two of them had also given themselves the additional task of looking after her mother as she got closer and closer to her going on maternity leave, for which she was as appreciative as her father was.

And then the band practices for TXNY, well that was just bonus. Even though there had never been anything like concerts in this place, to have the stage, and the lights and sound system, the rows and rows of seats ahead of them, it got to feel like they _were_ in concert. The best of those days had gone so far as to involve the boys working the curtain, shutting it and then opening it, with a call over the speakers to announce them… They hadn’t exactly been supposed to be there at the time, so they couldn’t speak about it outside the group, but that was alright. Secrets among them were always the best ones…

TO BE CONTINUED


	108. Their Summer of Screens

After the situation with the online comments, both Maya and Lucas, along with the rest of the group really, became somewhat concerned for the possibility that some of those people, if they were local, might spot Riley at the movie theater and mess with her there. It hadn’t happened as of yet, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t. She wasn’t alone working there, they knew, but that didn’t ease their concerns entirely. Part of them would want to be out there as a sort of backup, but it wasn’t like they could just hang out in there without paying admission to one movie or another, and if they had to do this again and again it would start to get very expensive. So, they did go, every so often, sort of like renewing a circle of protection around the place. And to watch movies, of course.

The rest of the time they would have to remember she was neither alone nor helpless. She had both Rebecca and Dylan there working with her. Rebecca was a constant, manning the concession stand with her, and Dylan being Dylan, though his job was to clean through the theaters between movies, he would be found hovering near where his friends worked whenever time permitted, and that only became more of a thing now, to the point where he had been warned once or twice.

The incidents as they feared them never actually came, but still, they were not in the habit of leaving any of their friends hanging, so here they were, whenever they could, dropping in. They didn’t stroll in and point out the fact that this was the lion’s share of their reason for being there, of course not. They would go in and see a movie – because they were kids and it was summer – and go and talk with their friends (and try to get freebie snacks… some of them) – because what else were they going to do? If Riley figured out what it was actually about, she never said.

They could always see small signs of the additional bonds they would all make with those they worked with. Zay and Joey with the theater, Lucas and Ray with the museum, then Maya, Asher, Nadine, and (for the time being) Farkle and Smackle down at the diner. For the trio who worked at the movie theater, this was no exception. They would develop in-jokes and somehow could not bear the presence of popcorn when they watched movies at someone or another’s house, which they supposed made sense, if you spent hours on end surrounded by the smell of it or having to sweep it up… though they suspected Dylan was still just fine with it but was showing solidarity with the two girls.

And it being summer, just as it had been the case with the boys down at the theater, things were even more busy, most of all here at the movie theater. There was no such thing as a quiet day there in the summer, and the days would go on and on without pause, to the point where, by the time they finished work, all they’d want to do would be to sit… maybe stare at the wall or something.

They were getting closer to the end of Farkle and Smackle’s stay though, and while they still had plenty to occupy them between now and then, it only served to make the days feel like they disappeared out from under them, so really, going to the movies, all of them together, was about them, too. And whenever the trio weren’t actually working and they got to watch a movie with them, well that was even better. They would take a particular joy out of trying to ‘sneak’ in unseen, like they were any regular customer.

“What are you doing?” Lucas almost ran into Dylan as they were walking into the aisle their baker’s dozen would close out once they took their seat. The other boy had suddenly stopped and crouched and stayed there. Behind Lucas, the small pile-up this created also became curious about the hold up.

“Yes!” Dylan stood back up, brandishing a pair of – somewhat worse for wear – sunglasses. “Guy lost his sunglasses here last week, we never found them.”

“Yeah, I don’t think he’s going to want those back,” Maya declared, poking her head out from behind Lucas. “Unless he only needs the left side.” Despite this, Dylan had gone off to leave the broken sunglasses with lost and found before returning to join them and claim his seat.

It could often be they’d break off the group over two rows, one behind the other, or even three rows. Depending on when they actually showed up, blocking off an entire row of their choosing wasn’t always a possibility and the smaller blocks would be a bit easier to manage. If ever it came to be that they’d have to send one cluster here and another there, when the theater would be too crowded to accommodate them all in one place, it would give way to a lot of dramatic hamming, as though they were being torn across oceans from one another, ‘weeping’ that they would remember the others fondly. When they got to lock down a row though… that was sort of their favorite thing to do. The snacks would be passed this way and that down the line, everyone taking what they wanted and adding it to the tall empty drink cups they had collected, allowing them to create mixes.

“Okay, you know we shouldn’t have sat those two together, right?” Maya told Lucas as they both shook some candy into their cups. He looked to his right, where Dylan sat, and Farkle next to him.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, Dylan’s seen bits of this already, he said so, and Farkle… at the movies…” Now he understood his ‘mistake,’ pondered briefly swapping seats to break the potential of those two talking the whole way. “Hey, you’re not going anywhere,” Maya told him, like she’d read his mind. He looked back at her, smiling sheepishly. Of course, he wouldn’t. They always sat together, him and her.

TO BE CONTINUED


	109. Their Summer of Exhibits

The benefits of having him, a tour guide at her favorite museum in the city, and her, a lover of art he made it his business to know plenty about, went a long way. The easiest one would be when she would go and partake of the museum’s exhibits and have him as her guide. If anyone had bothered to realize that she had been guided through the same exhibits by the same guide several times already, they didn’t bother to say anything about it. If it came that it was just the two of them on that tour, well it allowed him to be paid to take her around one of her favorite places to be… It was almost too funny.

The other thing was, of course, he had learned a whole lot about all the works and the artists he needed to know about, but on top of what had been required of him, he had been going the extra mile, and who happened to be the most ideal of tutors on the matter, always keen on finding out more, too? Well, his beloved girlfriend, that was who. Lucas would never have expected himself to become so engaged in discussions of artists, of influences, and techniques… But he did, and these talks could sometimes stretch on for a solid hour… or two… One day they had spent an entire afternoon with a pile of books, out in his backyard. They had never seen the time go by.

Lucas had done his part in tutoring Ray in his early days as the newest guide at the museum, after they’d gotten him hired, though before long those sessions had also involved Maya. Now, they might have a few more of those, the three of them together… A new exhibit was opening up. It hadn’t opened _yet_ , and it wouldn’t for another week or so, but it was all up there, and they had been familiarizing themselves with it all. Maya had inevitably been curious, and he had to guess that her being so busy with the band, and her own job, and the ever-approaching birth of her new siblings, had all gone a long way into keeping her from hounding him for details at every turn.

This only made this idea feel better and better the more he thought about it.

“Wait, I thought we were going to pick up those cupcakes for your mom’s… thing…” Maya questioned him, staring out the window as they drove, but then all at once realized, maybe because she was finding he had never explained very well what this ‘thing’ was, that… “Wait a second,” her head whipped back to him. “There is no thing with your mom, is there?” He shook his head. “No cupcakes? I was promised cupcakes,” she ‘complained,’ and he smirked.

“We can get cupcakes after,” he vowed.

“After what?” she asked, sitting up with curiosity now. “After what?” she poked at his arm as they were stopping at a red light. “Tell me!”

“You’ll see,” was all he would say, but then she looked at where they were, where they seemed to be headed.

“Wait, we’re going to the museum, aren’t we?” He didn’t say anything. “Why are we…” she went on, and just as the light had turned green again, he’d gotten a flash of saucer-eyed excitement. She didn’t even need to ask, now that the answer had come to her, she had just smiled.

She had been joking that she could make an excellent museum thief, with this easy access she had into the building. _He_ had been insisting that she not make that joke anywhere near the museum itself, because he happened to like having a job there. She wasn’t exactly wrong, in truth. They had somehow gone from being turned out of the place after coming in rain-soaked, to going around like they had an all-access pass, more often than not.

Before long, he was bringing her up to the doors leading into the new exhibit. At this point, she looked caught between wanting to talk and talk and talk, and falling into a hush of reverence, and he knew if it hadn’t been just the two of them she would have tried to cover it up and act cool. She must not have felt she needed to, not with him.

They walked through the doors together, the silence all around them becoming like a third presence along with him and her.

“Want me to give you the tour?” he asked with a smile.

“You got all of it figured out already, huh?” she inquired.

“Close enough, yeah.” He reached into his back pocket, pulling out a stack of note cards, strung on a binder loop. He was aiming not to pull those out, but it remained to be seen whether or not he’d manage it.

They started on their way around the new exhibit, and he began giving her the tour. She let him do his thing, as invested as he was in ensuring he had this new load of information well settled into his brain. It helped that she didn’t ask questions, letting him recall what was coming up next whenever they stopped at one piece and then another. He knew he would still have to practice, but he did get through the whole thing without looking at his cards once, and that was already encouraging.

“That was pretty good, Mr. Guide Man… Now let’s go again,” she smirked as they reached the end.

“We are not pushing our luck, we should get going,” he pointed out, and she sighed. “But, I mean… I’m sure Ray’s going to need to practice, too,” he tried to cheer her back up.

“True, although it’s not the same,” she gave a solid fake pout, and he chased it away with a kiss that got her laughing, before she finally relented to pack in and head out like good little non-thieves.

TO BE CONTINUED


	110. Their Summer of Tables

It wasn’t ever the case that all five of them worked at the diner at the same time. Maya, Nadine, Asher, Farkle, and Smackle would vary in their combinations from one shift to another, but at least there was always two or three of them at the same time. As for the others, if they weren’t working elsewhere, more often than not, they would all end up hanging out at the diner anyway.

Without a doubt, when it would happen that Maya, Nadine, and Smackle were all working at the same time, they could just about guarantee Riley would be there, completing the quartet of TXNY. That was the case on this evening shift, and when a lull had set in, they had all ended up huddled around the counter, figuring out their plans for the Babineaux party, and for another performance they’d gotten lined up before Smackle returned to New York, deciding what video to upload next… They had filmed so many things in the last few weeks, and they planned to space the uploads out as best they could, to last them until the next time they were all together, whenever that was. Not knowing whether that would be at Christmas, or a whole year away, or anything in between, that did complicate matters.

“You three can do other things, too, even if I’m not here,” Smackle insisted. “I’m not going to feel left out or anything.”

“We could work with this though,” Maya told them, “We do individual shots of all of us, edit them together… It’s like we’re all there even if we’re not. I’m sure Farkle can help you with it.”

“Just don’t call him a director, he _will_ put on a hat,” Riley added, making Maya and Nadine laugh. Smackle didn’t laugh so much as pause, and think, and give a small smile.

“If this keeps up, we’ll have this trip funded in no time,” Nadine shook her head, staring at her laptop screen. Riley gave her a look of warning. She had shown some superstition, whenever one of them would make a statement like that, thinking it would extinguish whatever flame they’d managed to kindle since that first show at Chubbie’s. They guessed it wasn’t completely unreasonable to keep all that in mind, but then sometimes they really couldn’t help themselves, getting excited about everything that was happening.

As was sort of expected, following the surge in their popularity, their all being in one place had a way of inciting more people to come up to them when they saw them. They weren’t sure how Asher’s uncle would react to all this, but at this point it was bringing more people into his diner, so he was all for it. He insisted to help promote them whenever he could. Now there was a small stack of CDs sitting next to the cash register, available for sale.

Whenever one of them happened to be at the register when someone would ask about those, it always felt a bit more awkward, self-promoting and all. When Farkle or Asher were there though, it was all about glowing reviews and encouragements for purchase. When Asher’s uncle was at the cash register, he was almost so enthusiastic there was no chance whoever had inquired didn’t leave with a CD in hand. There was a box of them in the backroom, to refill the pile every time it was depleted… and it had happened many times already. Now the talk of a performance there at the diner had started to surface, though they weren’t sure it was the best plan, with them working there and all.

“We could do it sort of flash mob style,” Nadine joked with a smile. “Just start singing, climb on the counters, the tables, break out a guitar from behind here…” They laughed, though it was clear none of them wanted to do that either.

“If we want to appease him though, we could film a video here…” Maya followed.

“ _That_ we can do,” Smackle agreed, and Nadine and Riley nodded along.

When Lucas showed up, Maya looked at the clock, not having realized they were getting so close to being done. He would drive all four of them to their respective homes when the diner closed, keeping her for last of course.

“Hey look, it’s our bodyguard,” Maya beamed, looking back at him as he approached and leaned in to kiss her. “We need to get you one of those… tight black t-shirts,” she looked him up and down, and he smirked, the better to prevent any redness rising in his cheeks to show. “Although, that could get distracting…” she went on to ponder. “Eh…” she shrugged, accepting the distraction. If nowhere else, Lucas the bodyguard would live in livid color in her brain for a good long while.

The end of their night at the diner went about as casually as this, with only a couple of low maintenance patrons left. Once they were gone and they’d taken care of everything else they needed to do, they packed into Lucas’ car and started the ‘redistribution,’ Nadine to the Zhu house, Riley to the Matthews house, and Smackle to the Fitz house. When it was finally just the two of them, Maya went about telling Lucas about the ideas they’d had over the evening.

“I don’t want them to leave yet…” she sighed as they stopped in front of the house, leaning back into her seat. He looked over at her, his eyes telling that he clearly wished he could keep that from happening, even though he couldn’t. Those two being with the group for the summer had just become part of how things worked for them, and as great as it was, they knew that part of that greatness involved the small heartbreak that came when the visit came to an end.

TO BE CONTINUED


	111. Their Summer of Progress

Even though they still had weeks left before they went back to school and started a new year, the Babineaux family party had come to feel like the closing of the summer, or at least the signal that they were very much closer to the end than they were in the thick of it. And with Zay’s great grandmother GiGi very much recovered, it seemed they were in for one great day.

“You, Blondie, come here,” she waved Maya over as they arrived at the house, that wily smile on her face. Coming from her and only her, the nickname came off endearing.

“Hey, GiGi, looking good,” Maya beamed, leaning to hug her. The old woman gave as good as she got, laughing that laugh of hers that felt like the vocal personification of the embrace. As they pulled away from one another, GiGi handed her a bulging cloth bag. “What’s this?”

“For your mother, that is, for the little ones. Won’t be long now, will it?” she asked, smiling still.

“Yeah,” Maya confirmed with a nod, looking down into the bag. She could only see the items at the top, but she saw clothing, and little toys, knitted by the woman’s agile fingers.

“Two of everything,” GiGi informed her. “I had started putting some things together, but the day Isaiah came and told me your mother was having _two_ babies, oh…” she laughed.

“Thank you,” Maya could only hug her again. “We’ll bring them to see you when they’re here.”

“Oh, I would love that,” GiGi gave her arm a loving pat. “I also heard you girls were giving a show today?” She nodded. “Good, I can’t wait to see you in person. Will you see that you and the other three sign this for me?” she pulled something from the pocket on the side of her wheelchair. It was one of their CDs. Maya smiled. “I always said you had a terrific voice.” Of course, she’d listened to it, of course. Maya wouldn’t put it past her to have one of their shirts, too.

“Consider it done.”

They still had a little while before they actually went and did their performance, so they could enjoy the party, talking to the other guests. Even if they didn’t see most of them anywhere except on this one day, at this party, they would see each other and it would be like no time had passed. They would call back previous years, previous conversations, catch up on what they had been up to. Where Maya and the rest of the band was concerned, of course, that was a dominating topic. Then there was the less pleasant topic of the whole basketball debacle, but they didn’t dwell on it longer than they had to.

Finally, Zay’s aunt had come to let them know they were ready for the performance. She had insisted on paying them for it, giving them their due. More money for the trip fund, that was what they told themselves, even if they might have all entertained a quiet thrill at being treated like a proper band. Sure, that was what they were, but it was nice to know others saw it, too.

Their instruments had been set on the stage, which they had been surprised this year to find had gotten an upgrade. The thing was a proper stage now, more than the roughly one-inch-thick platform of previous years. They could have gone crowd surfing off of it if they wanted to, something Maya kept to her thoughts, thinking better than to put that idea anywhere near the likes of Dylan and his billion little ‘battle scars.’ All she could imagine was him diving and crushing GiGi, sitting there at the front of the gathering guests.

It was only their second show after Chubbie’s, and though it was a smaller gathering, it was still sizable. The girls kept to their simple vow, that no matter the number, they would perform like they stood before thousands. And that’s what they did, under the summer sun. By the end of it, they found the heat of the day, which had been just fine, after the exertions of the performance, left them in a desperate need for a swim, and so they ended up in the pool, still on the high of the show. They had tried a different lineup for their songs here, to see how it would feel, and really it had felt even better than the first time. They had closed with Maya’s song, the first time they performed it for a crowd, and for her it really felt electric… These were her words, born of a dream that had forced her awake, and even as she sang them, it felt like she was back in that dream, like it filled the waking world around her. Either that or it was heat stroke… but probably it was the dream… right?

“What are the odds we will all go to college in the same city?” Riley asked her, as they both lay side by side floating on an inflatable mattress.

“I don’t know,” Maya shrugged.

“But it would be great, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, for sure,” she smiled over at her, and Riley smiled back. “You and me and Nadine and Smackle could get an apartment together, somewhere we can practice and everything.”

“If there’s the four of us, won’t the boys be there, too?” Riley asked. “Lucas, and Farkle, and Zay, and… I don’t know…” She’d almost said Scott, and Maya tried to swallow back her urge to chuckle.

“Well now, if there’s all of us already, then we’ll need to get everyone else in there, too. Can you imagine it? Our little baker’s dozen, all in one house…”

“We’ll need a lot of bathrooms,” Riley appraised, and again Maya laughed.

“That’s it then, that’s the plan,” she declared.

“That’s the plan,” Riley repeated happily, right before Asher, Dylan, and Ray flipped their raft and sent them screeching into the water.

TO BE CONTINUED


	112. Their Summer of Growth

In what felt like whiplash speed, they were at the airport, sitting around in wait for the flight to New York to board, eating cinnamon buns. It felt like a trick, impossible. They all sat together there, friends from near and far, their impending separation feeling unjust. It had been such a wonderful few weeks. The eruption of TXNY, all of them working together, living together…

The second show the band had given – third, with the Babineaux party – had been just the day before, which had made for some very reluctant awakenings this morning, to make their way here to the airport, but it had been worth it. If the first show at Chubbie’s had been about people finding out who they were, the second one – also at Chubbie’s, with much less resistance this time around, no resistance at all but invitation really – saw them not as unknowns anymore, not to a large number of people. It became such that the place, which was a restaurant at heart, had to clear tables to make way for the incoming audience. It felt so surreal as the girls and their friends saw how many of them came, how many now wore the t-shirts they’d bought… They were here for them, they wanted to see them… How could they _not_ think it was a dream?

They had all ended up back at the Friar house for a sleepover, in a reversal of the old days sleeping over at the Hart house, the boys were up in Lucas’ room, while the girls had gone to settle into the basement, still riding the high of that show, although this hadn’t kept them from sinking into sleep in next to no time, seeing the last night before Farkle and Smackle’s departure be filled by something else than sadness, even if it would hit like a ton of bricks in the morning.

“I’m really starting to appreciate camping,” Smackle stated as they sat with their snacks at the airport. It was so random of a statement, but then it also took them back, and happily so, to a few days before, when they had followed their other tradition and gone camping with Pappy Joe. Maya had briefly hesitated about going, unable to keep from thinking her mother might go into labor while she was away. She didn’t want to miss the birth of her little siblings… She had gone, of course, keeping her doubts to herself.

As frenetic as the show had been, camping had been a moment of peace. All of them around that lake, it was the kind of thing they all quietly longed to return to. In all its simplicity, it left them only to one another, and that was actually just fine. This year it was just Pappy Joe there to escort a whopping thirteen of them, which had led him to joke how he was hosting a small summer camp and they should call him Counselor Joe. Some had taken to calling him Counselor Pappy, which only made him laugh.

With only him there, it had been very easy to get away with some things more than before, though they wouldn’t go and abuse that trust. They did however grant themselves one thing. As night had fallen and everyone had retreated to their tents, there had been some time allowed to elapse in silence and stillness before a few quiet feet went padding out of their tents, going into another.

Maya had been one of those, leaving the tent she shared with Riley and Nadine and going into the one shared by Lucas, Zay, and Farkle. She had met Zay in her crossing, crouching through the tent’s opening to find the ‘brothers from another state’ there, waiting for her. They had been setting themselves to the task of zipping Lucas and Zay’s sleeping bags into one big one, as she knew the girls back in her tent would be joining hers to Nadine’s.

“Hey,” she smiled, as Farkle returned to his own bag.

For those two nights they’d spent at the lake, the two couples had shared their enlarged sleeping bags. Neither Maya nor Lucas could say if Zay and Nadine had ever slept in the same bed (or bag) before, but it had been a first for them, and even if sleep was all they were after, it had not spared them from feeling something bordering on shyness.

“Technically speaking, this isn’t the first time we’ve done this,” Maya had whispered after they’d crawled into the sleeping bag, lying on their sides to face one another. He remembered. The day she had found out – or thought she’d found out – that she and her parents were moving back to New York, she’d been so upset, and so had he, frankly. And riding that shockwave, they had fallen asleep, on the floor in his room, him holding her close. It couldn’t have been for all that long, and it was hardly a conscious act. There in the tent, it was an idea they’d had, them and Zay and Nadine, when they’d been swimming earlier in the day. With the collaboration of Riley and Farkle, it had all gone off without a hitch.

“I kind of like this time better,” Lucas had whispered back to her, reaching over to pull her in his arms, which she’d gladly surrendered to.

So, for those two nights that was how they slept, her with her back to him, their four arms in a tangle before her, while his face was half buried in her hair. It had been the ultimate peace of their camping trip.

Sooner or later they all had to pack up and go home, leaving their haven and its secret sleepovers, returning into the city in preparation of the second Chubbie’s show and the trip back to New York for their two guests.

Next summer, if they played their cards right, would be just like this. And the one after that… if they played _those_ cards right, the one after that would be vastly different, yes, but it would see them fly off on the trip they were all working so hard to earn up for. And after that… college… It would never be the same, which really meant they only had one more summer like the one they’d been having. No matter how much they looked forward to the ones that would come after, it couldn’t be helped that a part of them would be left feeling like the end of an era was coming, and they hated to see it go.

When time came for them to escort the two travelers to their gate, they had to work very hard not to walk off in a giant huddle. There were many hugs, and handshakes, and goodbyes, so many it got to feeling like they were stalling, pushing back the moment where they would really have to let the two of them go. But eventually they did, and soon they were out of sight, off on their plane and taking off into the sky. It left eleven of them behind, which was a lot to most people, who would have looked at them and not seen that anything might be missing. If they’d been part of that group they would have seen it, would have felt it. Suddenly their cinnamon buns felt like boulders at the pits of their stomachs.

Finally, they got back in their cars, leaving the airport again. The girls, four now rather than five, went off together. Rebecca was driving in the front, leaving the three Texas-based members of TXNY squeezing in the back together. The front passenger seat, empty, had them thinking about Smackle. At the second show at Chubbie’s, they had felt the need to explain the situation, the truth they had lived with, that one of their members, their songwriter, was the NY in TXNY at the moment, and would be returning there soon, leaving the rest of them to play without her. They had written about it on their pages on the internet, too. It had always felt very important to acknowledge it, acknowledge her, and that remained the case.

“Hey, Isadora,” Maya smiled, looking into her phone’s camera, stretching it back to include the girls on either side of her after hitting record, “This one’s for you.” And the whole way home they sang for her, the video sent and waiting for her for when she’d arrive home. Even if it had been just for her, she had chosen to upload it and share it. She called it the start of the second chapter of TXNY, and it was that.

TO BE CONTINUED


	113. Her Welcoming of Days

Summer was well on its way to ending, in just a couple of weeks, but to Maya, for all the excitement brought on by her friends’ visit, by the rise of her band, the headliner, the big event, was still to come… and coming closer by the day. The twins were so close to being born now, and the whole of their house felt like a powder keg of nerves, ready to go off. Her father would jump into action at the slightest noise or motion from her mother, assuming she was going into labor. Maya may not have been just as prone to this as he was, but she also couldn’t claim herself wholly innocent of doing her own share of overreacting. And her mother, oh, was she ever ready to be done being ‘pregnant up to her ears.’

Their extended circle of family and friends was just as ready and anxious for the big day to come, too. Riley’s grandparents were in from Philadelphia, staying at her house, and they’d been to visit a few times, always ready to give advice, and pointers, which was something of a mixed bag, appreciated in some moments, while in others Maya could see her mother was doing her best to remain polite, whenever they would give advice that might have been suited if this had been her first baby, when they knew it wasn’t, like Maya’s being grown as she was meant that Katy had forgotten everything. Oh, and then of course there was Cory, who was somewhere on the same level as Shawn was, so that when it was the two of them, it was anyone’s bet who would end up in the hospital first, her mother in maternity, or those two, tripping over themselves as they ‘looked out’ for her.

“Mom, Mom,” Maya came to her, whispering. “I think Mr. Matthews is on his way, want to go out for ice cream?” Her mother looked at her, eyes going wide but then smirking, giving a nod.

So off they went, Maya at the wheel and trying not to psych herself out about keeping the two of them… four of them… safe as she drove them along. And before long, ice cream turned into an impromptu mother-daughter day out, possibly the last one where it would be just the two of them, the Hart girls of New York, now of Texas. Maya’s mother had gone with her into the art supply store, and they had come out of there with, all in all, a relatively reasonable haul. They had gone to pick up a few things at the grocery store, anticipating the arrival of other guests making the trek down to Austin for ‘the big day.’ They had all mobilized for Shawn Hunter’s wedding day, and now they were doing it again, for the birth of his first – biological – children. His brother, Turner, Riley’s uncle Eric… There was no saying how long they’d have to stick around before the time came, and if they’d be able to stay until then or if they’d be forced to head back home and miss it after all.

“Why are we going to the baby store, don’t we have like one of everything by now?” Maya turned to her mother.

“Just been thinking… reconsidering… about this one thing,” her mother spoke in a casual tone that had Maya guessing that this reconsideration was one she’d made, begrudgingly so, following a talk she’d had with Amy Matthews.

After finally coming out of there, it was just about lunch time, and they went to get on the elevator up to the mall’s food court. Maya didn’t know how long they’d be running around, evading the double guardianship of Shawn and Cory back home, but she couldn’t say for sure how good it would be for her mother to be on her feet all this time. Maybe they could go and get pedicures after lunch, sitting around for a while, that’d be good, either that or go hang out at her mother’s co-worker Hildy’s house.

The elevator had just started making its climb, and then it shuddered to a stop all of a sudden, startling the two of them standing there until they realized they were stuck.

“Great, that’ll go over well with Dad and Mr. Matthews,” Maya sighed, pushing at the buttons on the panel by the door in hope of making something happen. Nothing. Grabbing the receiver, hoping to let someone in the mall know, she was met with a man’s voice that sounded about as bored with its job as one could get, but she was told they would be tended to as soon as possible. Maya didn’t dare to ask exactly when that would be, figuring she’d just get more grumbling. She did make sure to emphasize the fact that the other passenger was her mother who was ‘very, very, very pregnant.’

“I think just one ‘very’ would have been fine there, baby girl,” Katy let out a breath after Maya put the receiver back in its cradle.

“You okay?” Maya asked, watching her mother slowly pacing from one end of the short floor space to the other, both hands to her lower back.

“Pretending I’m _not_ stuck in an elevator,” she informed her daughter. “I’m thinking a beach… Hawaii maybe? I can practically hear the ocean…” she beamed, and Maya smirked, falling as much in step with her as she could, minding how little distance they had at their disposal. “What are you doing?” her mother asked, curious at how she’d started strumming her hands in the air.

“Ukulele,” Maya told her, and her mother laughed, only to stop short, her right hand moving from her back to rest atop her belly instead, staring into nothing. “Mom?”

“Maya, could you just, uh…” Katy breathed out, pointing back toward the doors. “Could you get that grumpy guy back on the line, tell him to hurry his a…” Her voice shorted out, and Maya could see a rush of pain across her mother’s face.

“No, no, no, are you kidding?” she blurted out, now very aware of their being far away from the beaches of Hawaii and rather in a mall elevator in Austin, Texas. “Are you…”

“Maya, the phone!”

“Right!” she hurried to get the receiver and its sunny operator back.

TO BE CONTINUED


	114. Her Welcoming of Panic

There was always a downside to everything, even the good things, maybe especially the good things, as though it would help balance it all out. For instance, the downside of Maya’s artistic tendencies, _creative_ tendencies, was the vivid imagination that came hand in hand with them. The possibility of her being stuck, trapped, in this elevator, with her mother, as she went into labor and was forced to deliver _here_ … She could see it all unfolding, like some nightmare. She would have to be the one to help her do it, which was as ridiculous as anything already, and then what if something went wrong? What if one or both of the babies was in trouble? What if _she_ put them in trouble, being some high school kid who had no business delivering babies, even if the mother was _her_ mother, even if the babies were _her_ siblings. Oh, it’d make a great story if it all went without a hitch, and they’d see those on the news now and then, but if it didn’t, if she messed it up… Now what kind of story would that yield?

“Hey, hey! Hello? Are you there, sir?” she called into the phone, the notes of panic in her voice seeming to ricochet along the walls like so many pellets. She had to remember to will herself not to call him out on his previous tone, knowing he stood between them and a speeding up of help coming to them. When all she got was the persistent tone, she could only imagine a phone out there at mall security, a red light flashing, and no one seeing it. “Pick up!” she shouted at the receiver, turning around to see how her mother was faring.

She was slowly resuming her pacing along the length of the elevator, looked all in all calm as she did it, but Maya could see she was still feeling… whatever she must have been feeling right about then. It could have been a false alarm, she knew those things happened, but in that moment, trapped as they were, the possibility was not a thing. As far as she could deal with what was happening around her, this was a very real alarm, and someone needed to get them out of there immediately.

“Mom, they’re not picking up,” she reported, balancing the receiver between her ear and her shoulder, reaching into her pocket for her phone. No service here, that just figured. Still, she went about holding her phone aloft, moving it around, hoping by some miracle it could pick up some kind of signal and get her in touch with people who could help them, at the same time going only as far as the cord from the elevator’s phone would allow. It would have been almost comical if she wasn’t so terrified. “Mom?”

“Listening to that ukulele, baby girl,” she breathed, pacing along. “If it does the job long enough, it will become my favorite instrument.” She was trying to stay calm, which was probably best, under the circumstances, and Maya tried to do the same, she really did, but it was not working, not one bit.

The cell phone thing wasn’t getting them anywhere, and she stuck it back into her pocket after a while. She tried pushing some of the buttons again, like maybe they would finally respond to her summons now, but they were as non-responsive as before, and her hand squeezed at empty air even though it wanted very much to punch at that panel, to release the frustration that was climbing in along with the fear and panic. This could not be happening, it couldn’t… It would have been easy to assume that she could have just jumped right into action, unafraid, unperturbed, but now she was here and she could see that it was the opposite. She was just powerless.

“What are you doing?” she blinked, seeing her mother trying to lower herself to the ground. The phone was left swinging as she moved to help her into a seated position, her back to the elevator wall. Maya stayed crouched before her mother, observing her. “Do you think it’s the real thing, o-or the fake thing?” Whatever Zen state her mother was attempting to stay gripped to, it seemed as though it was slipping away out of her hands as seconds went on, and Maya was sure she was trying to keep from letting it have complete control over her. “Mom?” she tried again, but her mother’s only response was to point a shaky finger back to the phone, all the while with her eyes shut into her ongoing bid for calm.

Maya scrambled back to the phone, sitting there on her knees with the receiver pressed to her ear. Still nothing. The curse that escaped her then was completely accidental, and if her mother heard it, she paid it no heed, too busy with much more important things. Maya tried to focus her hearing, to see if she could pick up anything that sounded like people working to fix the elevator, but all she got was the sound of her mother’s breathing, and her own pounding heartbeat.

“Maya, listen to me,” her mother spoke up again after a minute. She turned to her, and it seemed she had reached that calm state, but at the same time, it also looked like she was forcing it. “This is the real deal,” she informed her. “These babies are coming now. Come here, give me your hand?” Her heart was beating even faster now, so much it felt like she would pass out, but she scooted over to her mother, gave out her hand at once. “Whatever happens here, we’re going to get through this, alright?” She was being so calm, so much it felt like some other person and not her mother, but at the same time it felt like that calm was wrapping itself around her, soothing her by contact. “Alright?”

“Yeah…” she breathed, giving her mother’s hand a squeeze. “We’ve got this.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	115. Her Welcoming of Calm

The receiver was just left dangling off its hook at this point, waiting for someone on the other end to pick up. Maya could reach out her arm and grab it from where she sat if she heard someone talking out of it. For the time being, she preferred staying where she was now, sitting by her mother’s side, holding her hand and trying to share in the calm as much as encourage it in her mother. This wasn’t the easiest thing to do by far, but she was giving it all she had, even as, in her mind, she was trying to recall all she’d read on childbirth. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing she _wanted_ to be reading about, all the details of what happened and how, but it felt like she needed to, and now that she found herself in this position she had to wonder if part of her had wanted to be able to prepare for such an eventuality as the one she now found herself having to handle. If no one came for them before long, she just might have to start doing… something. This could take a while, couldn’t it? Unless…

“How long have you been feeling it?” she asked her mother, who turned to look at her with something of a sheepish look. “How long?” Maya insisted.

“Oh, a few hours now,” Katy admitted, and Maya felt her face grow faint.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I wasn’t sure it was real at first, and then we were having so much fun, you and me…” her mother explained with a sigh, reaching her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and drawing her closer. “I didn’t want to cut things short on you. Things are going to be so different from now on…”

“Mom,” Maya sighed with a laugh, “They’re already different, and I don’t mind. I _want_ them to change. I want to meet them,” she pressed a hand to her mother’s belly. “You and me, we’re always going to be ‘you and me,’ no matter if I have two siblings, or five, or twenty.”

“Woah, hey, let’s just see what happens after the two for now, alright?” her mother laughed, tears in her eyes as she leaned in to kiss her daughter’s cheek. “I love you so much, my Maya,” she added, looking her in the eye.

“I love you just as much,” Maya vowed back, and she could not have been calmer than she was in that moment. Right then, there was no doubt in her that, if the need should arise, she could and she would deliver those little ones, in an elevator, in a mall, in Austin, Texas.

“Hey, do you hear that?” her mother spoke a few seconds later, even as Maya was turning her head up and listening.

“Yeah, there’s voices,” she confirmed. “And…” Before she could go on, the elevator gave a quick shake, and then, after a tense pause, they felt what was without a doubt a downward motion. The elevator was moving, headed back down. Even before they could be sure it would stop somewhere they could open the doors and get out, Maya felt relief flood her, thinking the delivery of her siblings would be left in the hands of people actually trained for such a thing.

And then the doors swept open, and the miracle expanded, as, standing around the guy who had probably been responsible for their coming back down, were a few familiar faces.

“Katy! Maya!” Shawn dashed through the open doors and knelt to embrace them both. “Are you okay?” They both responded at once, informing him in turn that Katy was in labor, and that they needed to get to the hospital. “I knew it… Even before he showed up,” he nodded over his shoulder, to Lucas standing just outside the elevator with Mr. Matthews.

“You were at the house?” Maya asked him, confused.

“We were supposed to look at those new shirt designs, remember?” he explained, and she realized she had forgotten he was supposed to come over, in her attempt to get her mother out from under the watchful eyes of Nurses Hunter and Matthews. She’d meant to text him about it, right before they’d actually gotten on the elevator, and then well… “I sort of helped them figure out where you might be, then when we got here, the elevator wasn’t working, and that guy said there was ‘a girl and a pregnant woman’ stuck inside…” He didn’t say the rest, minding present company, but the looks he pointed to her father and Riley’s made Maya guess the pair of them had been very persistent in getting the man to hurry up and fix the problem. She smirked, tipping her head to him.

An ambulance had been called, to hurry Katy off to the hospital along with Shawn. Maya told them to go on ahead, that she’d follow them in the car. She stayed with her parents all the way until they were inside the ambulance, before they could take off. She gave her mother a good hug, whispering at her ear some words that were for the two of them alone. Katy hugged her back, telling her to hurry to them but of course be careful. Maya promised before climbing out of the ambulance and moving to stand with Lucas and their teacher as the doors were shut and the vehicle took off.

“Mr. Matthews, do you mind?” she held out the keys to the man, her own hands shaking. He took them and gave her shoulder an understanding squeeze. “It’s happening…” she breathed, looking back to Lucas as they hurried to the car. The words just kept on echoing inside her head. It was happening… her little brothers or sisters would be born on this day… It was happening…

TO BE CONTINUED


	116. Her Welcoming of the Time

As they rode toward the hospital, with Mr. Matthews at the wheel, Maya was assisted by Lucas in contacting all necessary parties, the family members and the friends who would want to be at the hospital right about now, waiting on those babies with them. The troops would rally, they would meet them there.

Maya was feeling her heart so very big in her chest. It was happening, it was finally happening. She had imagined so many times what she would do, on the day, the moment when her mother needed to go to the hospital. She had imagined the things she would bring along, and now she had none of it. Well, that wasn’t entirely right, she did have some material to draw with, following her visit to the art store with her mother. All their bags had been pushed into the trunk before they’d climbed into the car and taken off. She had been wanting to keep those for later though, plus she’d been working in this one small sketchbook, which was meant to be a present to her little siblings, showing small scenes she’d been immortalizing in those pages over the past few months, along with a number of pictures she’d stuck between some of the pages. But it was at home now, so she would either have to wait until she was home again and add whatever things she saw fit, or she could use another sketchbook and stick the pages in the baby book later.

“You alright?” Lucas asked, and she didn’t hear him, not until he reached out and took her hand. She turned to face him. “You alright?” he repeated.

“Yeah,” she nodded, though her voice told a fuller story, along with her face. They said ‘it’s happening, it’s really happening, the twins are coming, I can’t wait to meet them, are we there yet?’ He smiled, giving her hand a squeeze.

“Breathe,” he instructed, only mouthing the word. She gave a sharp nod and took a breath, then another one, deeper, feeling her spinning head start to settle a bit.

“I thought I was going to have to be the one to do it,” she told him. “Back in the elevator. I was so sure I was going to have to deliver those babies, there on the elevator floor, it was a nightmare…”

“You won’t have to now,” he reminded her, reassured her. “She’s going to have them in the hospital now, everything’s going to be alright.”

“It will?” she had to ask, and he nodded again. “Okay,” she breathed, figuring she could either trust him or fret some more.

“We’re almost there,” Mr. Matthews reported from the front seat. They’d lost sight of the ambulance by now, as it could make it through the streets a whole lot faster than they could, but still they were making good time. Maya turned back to Lucas, nodding her head down to indicate for him to come closer.

“How’s _he_ doing, you were with him and my dad before?” she whispered. Lucas had to bite back a laugh before he replied, explaining a bit of the scene he’d come upon when he’d gone to see her at the house earlier.

By the time he’d made it there, the two lifelong friends had had time to stew in the fact that both Katy and Maya had skipped out on them for the day, and when Lucas had shown up at the door, the pair of them looked almost thrown at the concept that either one or both of the Hart girls might have seen them as overbearing. Before he could explain why he was there, they had asked him if _he_ thought they were coming on too strong.

Maya had to bite back a chuckle, picturing him stood before his girlfriend’s father _and_ his teacher, put under a lamp for questioning. All he had managed to put out was a sheepish sort of statement that he’d only come to see her, that they were supposed to do some band stuff together. This had then given way to the two men wondering why the girls had not come back yet. Then Shawn had tried to call her mother, getting no answer, and then to call Maya, getting no more answer there, and thus the panic had been born, trying to figure out where they were, why they hadn’t returned, and why they weren’t picking up the phone either of them. The only solution then was that something had happened, or Katy was in labor somewhere.

“Good thing you texted me when you got to the mall or we’d probably be driving around the city with those two calling your names out of the windows,” he finished his whispered tale, while she now had to resort to burying her face against his shoulder to keep her laughs from reaching the front seat. She was honestly fifty-fifty on whether they would have actually done that.

Finally, they pulled up to the hospital, thankfully not having to drive around too long through the parking lot before they found a spot and could then make their way inside the building, seeking out Maya’s mother and father. When they got there, they were told that Katy had been moved into delivery, and that the three of them could go ahead and meet the rest of their people in the waiting area.

Maya had been in such a hurry to get to the desk that she hadn’t even noticed anyone had arrived yet. Of course, that reason might have been that only one of them _had_ arrived, and it was one she hadn’t expected at all. As they walked back toward the waiting room, they spotted him, one old man quietly reading a book. When they walked in, he looked up at them.

“Imagine my surprise, I had only just taken off from the airport in a cab, after my flight, when I got a message from Amy Matthews that I was to redirect myself to the hospital,” Mr. Feeny informed them, taking barely contained amusement at the surprised looks on their faces.

TO BE CONTINUED


	117. Her Welcoming of Anticipation

It wasn’t long that Maya understood, much as she had thought she would sit there and draw while she waited, there was simply no way that would happen. She was much too on edge to do anything except sit, or stand and pace around, fussing with this vending machine or that one, speed through the stack of old magazines sitting around with such intensity… It was a wonder she didn’t give herself a few paper cuts before, finally, someone – Turner, in this case – willed her to put those down and just sit with the rest of them and talk. It wasn’t as though she would be lacking for conversation partners.

There were so many of them, either standing or sitting around the waiting room, that it was any wonder how any of the other expectant mothers’ families got to fit in there with them. Riley was there, of course, with her mother, her father, her brother, her grandparents, and her uncle Eric. And there was Mr. Feeny, of course, and Turner, and Jack Hunter. There was Hildy from the theater, with her daughter Sara. And Lucas was there, right next to her, and in what was only a bit of a surprise, there were _his_ mother and father. Maya was sure that, if not for their being aware of the number of people present already, the rest of her friends would be packed into this room, too, but it had been well understood before this whole day had started that it was better that the rest of them just wait at home until she sent them updates. Lucas ended up being the one to handle those, yet one more reason for her to be thankful to have him there. In due time, they would come and visit the babies once they’d been born.

And in the meantime, all of them there at the hospital with her were more than eager to find out about the whole tale of her and her mother getting caught in that elevator and Katy’s almost having to rely on her teenage daughter to deliver her babies. If nothing else, it gave Maya something to do, and so she had given herself to the story. Looking back on it now, it didn’t feel like a whole lot had happened. They had been stuck in there for all of fifteen or twenty minutes in the end, though it had felt like an eternity. And Maya still remembered so vividly how it had all felt, the fear and the frenzy, her mother’s impressive calm…

“Well I have no doubt you would have risen to the occasion if you’d needed to,” Melinda Friar declared, with all the glowing confidence in her son’s girlfriend she had always shown, making Maya smile. She didn’t know just what would have happened if she’d ended up having to deliver her siblings after all, but she was more than happy to go with Mrs. Friar’s version of things.

The conversation had veered to the mothers and fathers there among them, talking about the various birth stories of their sons or daughters. For how nervous Maya couldn’t help but being, seeing the awkward looks on Riley’s, or Lucas’, or Auggie’s, or even Mr. Matthews and his brother’s faces as their respective parents talked about the days of their births, was just what she needed to keep herself from going off the deep end. She had already heard about Riley’s birth before, to some degree, and she had been present when Auggie had come along, but this time around the stories were seen under a new light, coming from their parents.

And then to hear Amy and Alan Matthews talk of the births of the two of their four children in the waiting room that day, that had been something of a trip in its own right. It was weird to imagine those two as children, more so as babies, although to see them react to their parents’ tales, maybe it wasn’t so hard after all… The senior Matthews had somewhat skirted past the story of their youngest child’s birth, which Maya had to interpret as it not having been such smooth sailing, and the grandparents not wanting to put that kind of thinking in her head while she was already waiting to hear how things had gone for her own mother, and her own baby siblings.

And then there were Mr. & Mrs. Friar, telling her all about when their little Lucas had come into the world. That might have been her favorite, seeing him squirm there in his seat, as though his mother and father had just whipped out embarrassing naked baby pictures to show her. Hearing how Melinda Friar went about it, the whole thing felt like some kind of epic, while her husband would chime in with something closer to reality.

“Then they put this little thing in my arms, crying and crying, and I held him close to my heart… and he looked at me with those eyes, and he stopped crying,” she went on, looking at her son with a misty-eyed smile. Lucas looked caught between genuinely wanting to reciprocate the love extended to him by his mother while also trying to maintain a collected appearance about him, as he sat next to his girlfriend.

“I think I need to go walk around for a bit,” Maya breathed after a moment. “You two want to come with?” she asked both Lucas and Riley. Lucas replied with a nod that might have been his saying ‘yes, please, get me away from this awkwardness.’ Maya smiled, tugging his hand so he would rise with her, as they and Riley wandered out of the waiting room. It was inevitable that her mind would roam, but she would have them with her, and that would keep her at least just grounded enough.

TO BE CONTINUED


	118. Her Welcoming of Worry

In the last few weeks, she had thought about being there at her mother’s side as she’d give birth to the twins. She didn’t know if this was something that was doable, or if it would have to be Shawn alone. She didn’t know and she didn’t ask, because she didn’t want them to get invested in her wanting to be in there when she was still only sort of imagining it.

The thing was that her reasons for wanting to maybe be in that room were a bit scattered. Yes, she thought it would be pretty great to be able to say she had been there the moment her little siblings had come into the world, to hear their first cries, and hold them. But if she was honest with herself, the strongest reason she held was that she didn’t like being away from her mother in this moment. She didn’t like not knowing what was happening with her, if she was okay. Much as she’d try and tell herself that women gave birth every day, she also knew some of them developed complications, and then… and then… It could all seem like everything was fine, and then something would go wrong, and what if that was what happened to her mother in there? She wasn’t just having one baby, she was having two, and that might make it even more of a risk, wouldn’t it? What if she wasn’t in there with her, what if she… what if…

“Hey,” Lucas called her back to attention, though really it was his hand slipping into hers that made her look up first. “You alright?”

She nodded. She shook her head.

“What is it?” Riley asked, taking her other hand. Maya looked from one of them to the other. Her two best friends… surrounding her in their protection. It willed a small smile out of her, shook out some of all that other business, poked holes in the dark clouds looming overhead and let in some sunlight to warm her again.

“Bad thoughts,” was all she could say, trying to shrug it off but immediately feeling like reality refused to be made light of.

They couldn’t know what it felt like. They’d both been raised by both their parents, they couldn’t know what it had been like, just her and her mother as she grew up. They may have had Shawn in their family now, and loved him as though he had always been part of it, part of them, but in a moment like this, all she could feel was that unbreakable line that looped from her to her mother and back. Katy Hart had been her whole world for all these years, and the thought that anything could take her away from her… It weighed on her like a whole mountain.

She couldn’t even tell them this, really, because it would have felt like she was diminishing the feelings _they_ might have had if they feared for their own parents, in one situation or another.

“You’re worried about your mother, we get it,” Lucas promised her, and Riley nodded in confirmation, making Maya breathe out, tugging at either of their arms so they’d walk even closer to her, shoulders to shoulders so they became some sort of six-legged, triple wide human being.

“Oh, hey!” the right-most section of their collective redirected them at a rush toward a nearby window. They soon found themselves stood facing the handful or so of newborns on the other side of the glass, wrapped all snug in blankets, small signs stuck to the front of them identifying their name, gender and so on. Before long there would be two more…

_If all goes well…_

Her hands squeezed the ones she held, and they squeezed back at once. She didn’t have to say a thing; they understood.

If she could just manage to focus on what she saw and not what she didn’t see, which in time she did, the worries would recede just enough that she could enjoy the moment, looking at all those new little humans across the glass, sleeping, or crying, yawning or blinking their little eyes… If they couldn’t give her a whole sky of sunshine, she didn’t know what could.

“Okay, last chance on bets. Brothers or sisters?” Lucas asked her and Riley. They all thought about it for a bit. They knew, per the small bit of information Maya had been able to pry out of her parents, that it was two of the same, not one of each, which at least took the options down one.

“What if she chooses one and it’s the other?” Riley interceded.

“Yeah, I think it might be too late,” Maya smiled at him, though in her head she had already thought of what she would say. She couldn’t say it now… Especially as she thought she saw something reflected in the glass and she turned to see Shawn striding toward her. Her hands released, though she could feel the both of them stood just right behind her, which was just as well, because the wait of those few seconds made her feel as though she might pass out. “Dad?” she managed to speak.

“Everyone’s fine,” was the first thing he said, maybe feeling the ball of nerves she had turned into. With those two words, the weight had released, the skies were sunny and blue, and she jumped into his arms about as quick as he grabbed on to her, lifted her clear off the ground for a moment there. Now that her mind had been put at ease, she could see him, her father, looking so overfilled with joy that he was spilling over.

“You cried, didn’t you?” she teased him, and he laughed.

“Let’s see how _you_ handle yourself, kid. Come on, there’s some people you need to meet.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	119. Her Welcoming of Siblings

The deep thumping in her heart now was of a whole other nature than the one she had suffered under just a few moments ago. Now it was one of joyous anticipation. Her father wasn’t giving anything up other than the fact that both babies had been born and were doing well, and that her mother had gotten through the delivery like a champ and was now resting. All discoveries would be made once they reached her mother’s room.

Even as they were nearing the open door, she swore she could hear them. They weren’t crying, were actually very calm, both of them in their respective little beds, like the babies she had seen through the glass. They were just at the edge of the bed where her mother… their mother… could reach in and touch them, look on to them, with a tired smile and equally overflowing with joy, with love. When they stopped right in the doorway, she looked up, finding Maya there and beaming, quietly waving her over.

Maya stepped up, feeling how words simply failed her here, for they had no place, when her eyes could bask in the sight of the two newborns, blinking and fussing with this life they had just started. Her eyes effortlessly welled with tears, which soon came rolling off her smile.

“Aren’t they something?” her mother asked, as Maya sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over to carefully hug her.

“You’re okay?” she couldn’t help but ask in a whisper.

“If you only knew how okay I am,” her mother reassured her as she sat back up and turned to find her father had picked up one of the babies. He gave her a nod she knew to mean he was about to hand it over to her, and she held out her arms, ready to receive the newborn. The little one gave half a second of protest at the transfer, but with Maya’s arms holding as they did, the protest was soon quelled, and Maya found herself stared at by two curious eyes.

“Hi…” was all she could say, smiling down at… She really needed to stop calling it ‘it,’ didn’t she?

Almost in an introduction, the babe in her arms waved its arm, showing the bracelet around its wrist. Maya took it up lightly, to inspect what it said. There was an A scribbled on the side, which she took to mean this one had been the first born of the two. And with no name yet assigned, it seemed, the child was presently identified as _baby girl Hunter_. Maya beamed, looking at the one she held, to the other, now being walked along in their father’s arms. Sisters… She had sisters…

“You stole my nickname,” she joked, making her mother laugh. “That’s alright,” Maya told the baby… told her sister… The thought sent another shockwave through her. She didn’t know that it would stop being so mesmerizing of a thought for a while. All she knew was that she looked at her, this little person who had been alive less than an hour, and already she held the power to chase away any and all crumb of a dark cloud. She couldn’t even remember how bad she had been feeling minutes ago, all thanks to this sunny girl in her arms. “Can I… can I hold them both?” she asked her father.

It seemed almost criminal to remove the baby from such a loving embrace, but he had been happy to fulfill her request, after he had gotten her to move to a nearby chair before he would place the second baby in the crook of her free arm.

“Evening, ladies,” she looked from one to the other, feeling she might never stop smiling. “I’ll be your big sister from here on out. You can call me Maya, or whatever else you want to call me, really… It’s kind of our thing,” she told them in hushed confidence. “Now you… I will have to call you something. I mean don’t get me wrong, ‘A’, ‘B’, fantastic letters, but as for names, they are a bit… lacking.”

“Was that aimed at us?” Shawn asked, and she looked up at him. He was holding his camera, and now that she thought of it, she vaguely recalled hearing a soft click a few seconds before. He had taken a picture, of her, holding them, a picture of his daughters, all three together, none of them the wiser.

“Hey, I’ll be happy to find them names if you won’t,” Maya insisted, with a chuckling smile, looking back down to the newborns. Her sunny little sister was still staring at her, while the younger of the two, freshly handed to her, gave off the immediate impression that she would stand as the quieter of the pair, nestled there and giving no fuss at all, quiet as a mouse. She looked back to her parents, looking at one another now with what was unmistakably a knowing smile. They _had_ made their choice, and now it was time to let her know what it would be. She might have been ‘shocked’ that they had fooled her into thinking they didn’t know they were having two girls already, but it was hard to be anything but anxious to find out her sisters’ names right then.

“So, here’s what we came to,” Shawn started to explain. “We were taking this whole naming thing to some… strange… places.”

“Wasn’t strange, you just didn’t like any of mine,” Katy insisted, and Maya smirked, seeing the look on her father’s face at this. “Anyway, I said we should name them after people.”

“Which I was on board with,” Shawn jumped back in. “The thing then was _which_ people.”

“You named one of them Cora, didn’t you?” Maya squinted at him.

“I did not,” he pointed a finger at her, in his own ‘defense.’ He came up to her side, crouching and kneeling, taking up the little closed fist of baby B. “This one’s called Grace,” he told her. Maya looked at him for a moment, trying to understand who she had been named for, but then she looked to her mother. That was her mother’s middle name… He’d named her after _her_ , the woman who had changed his whole life, one Christmas just a few years past…

“Hey, Gracie,” Maya looked to her quiet little sister. “What about her?” she asked after a minute, turning back to the first, in her other arm.

“Penelope,” Katy spoke from the bed, and Maya looked up at her, new tears welling in her eyes. “Hey, he got to name one after his best girl… and so did I,” her mother smiled at her. “We’re still not sure if we should shorten it, what do you think?”

Maya looked back down to her sunny one… her namesake… middle namesake… She didn’t look like a Penny… Maybe a Nell… a Nellie… Or she could just walk into the world with the whole of Penelope… It almost didn’t seem fair to decide now, when she was still so small, so new. So that settled it, and she said as much… If there was a diminutive that belonged to her, then it would reveal itself in time. For now, she was just feeling her heart warmed to kindling, holding Penelope and Grace Hunter in her arms. Her little sisters… She had sisters… It was still the best thought ever.

In due time, the bubble of their being on their own in the room, the five of them now, had to break, as the mass of visitors out there – who had found out about the birth once Lucas and Riley had returned to the waiting room without Maya – began to take their turns, coming to meet the twins. There were much too many of them to have them all in here at once, so clusters it would be.

Riley and her parents and brother had come first, and Maya had stood with her best friend, the two of them trying very much not to laugh as they watched their fathers, each with one of the babies in their arms, standing together, talking in respectful hushes even as their faces were overflowing with emotion. How far they’d come from the day they had stood together when it was Cory who had held his own newborn, the first of them two to have a child.

The twins had passed from one person to another in the next little while, and each of them could have taken a whole chapter to capture the love they emanated, for the babes themselves and for their parents, too. Maya had been all too happy to immortalize these encounters with her father’s camera, chronicling her sisters’ first few hours with all the diligence of a proud big sister. There would be time enough for her to set herself to her sisters’ sketchbook once they got home. Right now, she didn’t want to miss a single second.

TO BE CONTINUED


	120. Her Love For Home

The morning they brought the twins home, Maya felt as though they were stepping into a brand-new place. It was still their home, just as they had left it, but it didn’t feel the same anymore. It was almost how it had felt after Shawn had officially moved in, but it was also so much more. After she’d made the move down to the basement, her old room had just been left to sit there, unoccupied, but today it was moving-in day for Penelope and Grace Hunter, the heirs to the bay window.

Maya had carried one car seat into the house, occupied by her little sun, Penelope… Nell? Nellie? Her father had the other seat, where Grace was sound asleep, along with her mother’s bags. Katy had wanted to carry those, but he had insisted he wanted to carry those for her, so she had let him, an appreciative smile on her face. It was hard not to find his attentiveness a bit more endearing now that the twins had been born, as far as Maya could see, looking at them.

Katy had gotten the door open for them, watching them go by with some attentiveness of her own; they had better be careful, her eyes said. Finally, they walked into the house, and as they did, Maya found it hard to keep from smiling. Here they were, all five of them, home at last. Well, there was still something missing, she would tell herself. The dogs were presently at Riley’s, where they would stay for the next week, allowing the new members of the family to be properly settled in before they added three eager animals into the mix. Maya knew they would be just fine with the girls. All through her mother’s pregnancy they had shown themselves as curiously caring and protective of her, like they knew. Thinking how her sisters would get to grow up with that bunch, that just made her happy.

“Hey, let’s go see your room, yeah?” Maya smiled to her namesake as she picked her up out of her seat. Things she had learned on Miss Penelope Hunter so far: wide-eyed curiosity, vocal expression of self, and joy… Her little sunny sister could shift the grumpiest of faces into smiles like nobody’s business. As she held her, for being not even forty-eight hours old, the girl gave off the impression of taking everything in, and Maya couldn’t say what was actually going through her mind, but she chose to interpret it as she saw it. “Now this used to be my room, but it’s yours now. You’re going to love it, just wait.” Her father had Grace out of her seat now, too, and in they went through the door.

In the morning light of August, the girls had been settled, at first, side by side in one of the cribs. So close like this, they looked so much like one another. Maya would always remember the moment the night before, when for a moment they weren’t sure which was which anymore until they could get a look at the bracelets around their little arms – now bearing their names. They _were_ identical, but then Maya knew from being close friends with another set of identical twins that this didn’t have to mean they couldn’t be told apart. And it was true even now. You only had to look at them for a bit, and if you knew the two of them, the traits they were already starting to show would reveal themselves. Plus, Maya had spotted a birthmark on Grace’s right leg, so that settled the matter.

Things she had learned so far on Miss Grace Hunter, her little mouse-mouse: unwavering patience, peaceful demeanor, and cuddles… If you held her, she would cling to you and rest there like she wanted nothing more out of life, and they were more than happy to provide.

“Oh, I remember when you were this small…” Katy smiled up to her eldest daughter for a moment before looking back to the newborns. “I could sit and watch you sleep for hours… I _did_ , too.” Maya smiled back, imagining how they must all have looked, the three of them in a huddle, observing the two babes in their crib, but also thinking about her mother, all those years ago, standing there in vigil for _her_ in her early days. How strange it must have been, to think of those days long ago.

In time, though they could probably have stayed there for hours more, as her mother had said she’d done, they had to pry themselves away and see to getting some things done that needed doing. It was a day of discovery, of how to live there when they also had the babies in the other room. Maya found it almost impossible not to go and take a peek every once in a while, and she was not alone by any means on that front. At one time, they were all back in there again, finding the twins asleep, both of them, and leaving the three of them hypnotized overhead.

Eventually, Maya had gone and found the sketchbook and pencils from her room, to finally get all those images she’d been dying to add to it on paper. When it was done, the sketchbook would be set up on the shelves along with the collection of books they had slowly been pulling together, the twins’ library well on its way. Scenes from the hospital, and their arrival here at home, with their hovering mother, father, big sister, and the two of them sleeping along, almost reaching to one another as they did. Maya drew, and drew, and drew, sitting in the bay window, looking after her little sisters.

TO BE CONTINUED


	121. Her Love For Nights

Things she learned about the twins on their first night at home: they rallied. If one woke up and started to cry, the other would follow suit in half a second flat, as though saying ‘Oh, you’re crying? Then it must be what we’re supposed to do, let me have a go.’ If there was a way to figure out who was the instigator at one time or another, it would have to be figured out later. For the time being, there were crying babies, and if they didn’t sleep, then evidently no one else in the house would.

Maya woke up in the middle of the night, the sounds coming from above briefly catching her by surprise, confused, as though she still needed to remind herself that crying babies was a thing they did in this house now. She was surprisingly good at clambering up the basement steps half asleep, usually, on those occasions where she woke up thirsty or hungry and needed to make an excursion up to the kitchen. The bathroom wasn’t a problem, she had one down here.

Climbing up the steps half asleep while also propelled by the sound of your baby sisters crying, as she learned, was a whole other matter, and she made this discovery with haste. She miscalculated the height of the first step, tripped, stubbed her toes, and banged her knee. She froze there for a moment, suddenly _very_ awake, sort of in pain, and it took a few deep breaths before she was able to – very carefully now – climb up the stairs.

By the time she hobbled into the nursery, her parents were already there, each with a baby in their arms. Her mother was feeding one of them, while her father was rocking the other. They had it handled, which was just as well. Her father looked up, seeing her standing there, holding on to the door frame with her leg raised off the ground just a bit.

“What happened to you?” he asked, whispering.

“Stairs,” she mumbled. “Don’t run up them unless you can keep your eyes open,” she imparted this small ‘wisdom,’ getting a sympathetic smile from him. “I’ll… be right back,” she told him and her mother, moving off to the bathroom and turning on the light to inspect ‘the damage.’

There was a small scrape at her knee, and it was looking to bruise, while her big toe was looking to suffer much of the same, with a broken nail to boot. As lessons went, this one had just been excessive, hadn’t it? The best she could do to remedy it at this point was to tend to the aftermath. The nail was fixed, thankfully not broken in any way she couldn’t fix, even if it did hurt a bit to touch the toe. Nothing was broken, she was fairly sure of that, but damn did it hurt.

The cuts were cleaned, bandages were applied, and so off she went back to the nursery, where she found things had calmed down just fine in those two minutes or so she’d been in the bathroom. They had swapped babies, and now all was quiet again. Her father was putting the one he held back in her crib, and he approached her, inspecting the presence of the bandages on her.

“Think I’m going to take the couch for tonight,” she informed him, turning around and doing just that, dropping on to those cushions with a sigh, waiting for sleep to take her back.

She had been ready for this, for waking up in the middle of the night, for going to attend to her sisters. She even had a baby monitor, down in her room, just as her parents did up in theirs. She was going to shoulder some of the work, she had told herself. Looking after one newborn had to be tiring, and they had two, but that was alright, because there were three of them there to take care of them. Ha! What help she’d been, right? Her knee was throbbing, her toe was stinging, and she had done nothing except to tend to herself. She was being a bit hard on herself, she knew, but she couldn’t help it.

_It’s not like Nellie or Gracie is going to remember tonight…_ She told herself this, and it was true, she knew. She would have plenty of nights to make up for her stumbling show tonight.

She was still awake as her parents left the nursery and made their way back to their room. She watched them go, both of them looking like they could do with the sleep already. _I’m here now, next one’s on me,_ she thought determinedly as she fell asleep.

When she woke up again, the sun was coming up. She sat up, and wow, was the pain even worse now. She’d be wince-walking for the next day or two, wouldn’t she?

She put it out of her thoughts for now, instead getting up from the couch and limping off to the nursery. Grace, as was to be expected already, continued to sleep, but then her twin was very much awake, and contentedly staring at the mobile hanging over her crib.

“Hey, Nellie girl,” Maya whispered, smiling as she picked her up and held her close. “I guess it’s Nellie then, isn’t it?” she gave her a little kiss, and the babe lifted her tiny fingers, touching Maya’s face. “Yeah, it is,” it made her laugh. She looked up at the ceiling, painted white, and now she wondered if the mural might need extending there. It’d be something to look at, wouldn’t it? For curious sisters and quiet ones, too. Something to think about…

She walked over to the bay window with the girl, sitting on the bench where she could lay out her offended leg and they could enjoy the early morning together. Sitting there, with the one she had equated to the sun itself, Maya couldn’t remember what she had been so upset about a few hours before, and the pain… the pain didn’t bother her near as much either.

TO BE CONTINUED


	122. Her Love For Family

After a day of rest for her ‘battle scars’ spent alternately looking after Nellie and Grace from the comfort of the bay window seat or the living room couch – arguably the best cure she could have asked for – Maya had agreed to ‘take the night off,’ gritting her teeth down the stairs to her room in the basement. Of course, this didn’t mean the twins would suddenly _not_ wake up and start to cry in the middle of the night, waking her up. They did, and the reflex was for her to get up and go to them. And then the moment she swung her legs out of bed and put her weight on her feet, the pain fired up like a shock, and she had to stop herself, reminding herself to just stay there and take her night off.

It had been more difficult than she’d thought it might be, as she learned, to just sit there and listen to her sisters’ crying. Her parents would take care of them, she had already heard them shuffling across from their room into the nursery, and she could hear them over the baby monitor. She stayed sitting there in her bed, until she could hear no more cries, until she knew the girls were sleeping again, and her parents had gone back to their room. Then, and only then, had she gotten back into bed and back to sleep.

The next morning, the house was in full action, as they were expecting a visit from family and friends. The pain in her knee and her toe was still there, just a tiny bit reduced but still very much a thing. So, while her mother and father’s tasks revolved around house cleaning and getting some food together, Maya’s task was to get the girls ready… She took it happily, changing them into a pair of outfits gifted by Amy Matthews. Riley’s grandparents were heading home after today, along with Mr. Feeny, and Turner, and Eric and Jack, so it was only natural that they’d stop in for one more visit before they did.

“Well, don’t you little ladies look very pink this morning,” Maya drawled, looking into Grace’s crib after laying the newly dressed Nellie down next to her matching twin. They looked back at her, both of them. She wasn’t sure how long it took for babies to recognize people, to see them or hear them and think ‘this person is one of my people,’ but she felt very secure in the fact that her sisters had locked tight to her. It was the three of them, as a unit, just as it should be. “There’s going to be a lot of people passing you around today, but you’ve met them before, and it’s alright… They’re family,” she smiled at them, taking one each of their little hands in hers.

There had indeed been a lot of back and forth, one baby here, one baby there, both of them together… Maya had lost count of how many times someone had asked some variation of ‘which one do I have now?’ and each time she had only to look at them – sometimes only to hear the noises they made – to tell them. She could tell, like her parents could, that sooner or later all this fuss being made around them would tire them out, and eventually they had been returned to their cribs, sleeping soundly, while the rest of them talked amongst themselves. Even then, Maya had taken to play the ‘nursery police,’ stopping one or another of their guests from sneaking in there to get a peek. They always promised they wouldn’t wake them, but that wasn’t going to pass, no it would not. Every time she willed one of them to return to their seat, she would get a smirk out of her mother or father. Big Sister Maya would not be swayed.

Having them here the last little while, having them be present for the birth, she knew how special of a thing it was, and it almost made her feel… sad? All these people cared so much for them, for Shawn, for the twins, but they lived so far away, and though they had made the journey for this special occasion, as they’d done so for the wedding, it wouldn’t be the case that they would always get to come over, like it wouldn’t always be possible for her and her family to go see _them_. And really it was sort of a shame, for the girls not to get to grow up with them around, that they should have to go months on end without seeing them, because they lived so far away. Sure, they were still babies, and they didn’t understand this, probably wouldn’t for a while, but Maya knew how hard it could be to be away from people who mattered for a long time, and the thought that they could ever feel anything like it… was probably projection, just a bit, but it couldn’t be helped. She would always want the very best for those two.

By the time they would finally start and head off, they would have committed to weekly video calls, the better to catch up, the better for the twins to get to know them, whether they were near or far.

Maya went into the nursery, looking in on her sleeping sisters, finding they were still indeed sleeping. Lying there, in their cribs, with the matching blankets knitted by Mrs. Turner over them, at the heart of the nursery she had gone about decorating with her friends, Nellie and Grace Hunter looked well at home. Maya looked around, as she would find herself doing at times, thinking about what this room had meant to her, what the hand-off had meant, too, and she knew there was something else she needed to do…

TO BE CONTINUED


	123. Her Love For Art

Early the next morning she had left the house, aided on her task by Lucas, who would drive her to the store, to ‘spare her knee,’ as he said, though he could have given any reason and she would have accepted him. By now the pain in her knee and her toe were more an annoyance than anything else anyway, and she hardly thought about it except if she ever made some move that made it flare up again. She had more important things in mind than to think about that whole embarrassment with the steps.

One quick trip to the art supply store – again – later, she had what she needed, she was home again, and she and Lucas retreated into the basement. She sat on the ground, materials both previously owned and newly purchased laid out before her, while he lay belly-flopped on her bed, the better to watch her from over her shoulder. With her head bowed and her hair draped over her shoulder, he had started after a while to give some occasional pokes to the back of her neck.

“You’re going to make me go crooked,” she warned, though he could hear her just barely containing a laugh. He peeked at her work.

“Looks fine from here,” he reported. She paused, pushing her hair back for the umpteenth time before pulling an elastic from around her wrist and handing it over to him.

“Instead of keeping that up, braid my hair, please?” He hesitated as he took the elastic.

“Uh… Okay,” he sat up behind where she was leaning to the bed, inspecting the long mane of blond hair presently hanging loose from her head. “Hairbrush?” he asked, and she pointed without looking. Never would it be said that he did any job halfway, right?

So, as she painted, he brushed out her hair. She could hear him muttering the steps to braiding under his breath as he set himself to it, and she smirked to herself. She absolutely loved her long hair, always had, although these days she was coming around more and more to the possibility of a cut, anything between just reasonable and a drastic shortening. It was all still ideas at the moment, but she had caught herself staring at other girls’ haircuts more and more.

When the braid had been successfully tied off at the end, it had taken her a moment to realize he was still sitting back there and was now rolling and unrolling the long twining of her hair around his hand. By then, her small project was coming along nicely.

“There,” she eventually declared, sitting back with achievement. “Once these are dry, we can get them fixed in place,” she looked over her shoulder before looking back to the two completed name plates now painted and drying on the paper she’d laid out to protect the floor.

The twins’ names would alternate from one to another depending on the moment. Nell or Nellie, Grace or Gracie… The name plates, for their part, had been branded with _Nellie_ and _Gracie_. It rhymed, that had been her reasoning for it. As to the designs adorning the rest of the space, it almost went without saying by now; the personas, the nicknames, they were as cemented in her mind as anything. So Nellie’s was bordered with a sun at each end, the rays bursting wide and crossing one another in the middle, while Gracie’s featured a pair of sweet looking little mice, one at each end, perched in a grassy field that ran across the plate. And when they would be placed, one above and the other below, it would seem as though they formed a whole image, the pair of them together. Once they were ready, they would be stuck to the nursery’s door. She had briefly envisioned painting the names somewhere along the mural she and the others had done a while back now, but then there had been a thought, like… well, what if there was another baby someday, another little brother or sister? It might have been getting way ahead of herself, but in the end the name plates had felt like just the thing to inject a touch that was personal to her sisters.

Now that it was done, brushes and paints attended to, she returned and plopped herself down behind him on the bed. Staring at the ceiling, she thought again about her idea of wanting something up on the nursery’s ceiling, for all those times they’d be staring up there. She wasn’t going to go and paint something up there, in the end she had told herself that might actually be too much. But she could still do _something_ , couldn’t she? She wanted so much to be able to share of her gifts and have it benefit her sisters. They had been in her life for only a handful of days and already she couldn’t think of life before them in the same way anymore. They just belonged in the picture now.

She could just imagine a part of her wall of drawings, eventually featuring the works of Nellie and Grace Hunter. Although… By the time they were old enough to do that, she’d be off in college, wouldn’t she? Well, it would still be her room, yeah? And she would want them to have their own space on her wall. That was decided.

When the plates were dry enough, Maya and Lucas each grabbed one, along with the sticking strips that would fix them to the door. They were pressed into place, and now standing back, they could take in the results… It was just as she had envisioned it. And when her mother and father saw them, they were just as happy for it, this small touch of personalization greeting them into the twins’ world.

TO BE CONTINUED


	124. Her Love For Support

By the next day, it seemed the care of two newborns, at day and at night, even with all three of them there to look after the two of them, was starting to wear on everyone just a bit.

In the middle of the night, as had come to be expected, Maya had been awakened by the shrill cries of her sisters coming through the baby monitor. Her parents had been insisting that she could turn it off, or just try and get back to sleep, that they would handle the girls and she should get her rest, for herself much more than her knee and toe. She hadn’t been able to just turn the monitor off, but she had willed herself to stay down in the basement, trying to get back to sleep though inevitably lying there, listening, until all was quiet again before finally closing her eyes and getting back to sleep.

When the cries came that night, though, she had gotten up and, going cautiously up one step and then the next, she had made her way over to the nursery. Barring maybe the twins, she was the best rested person in this house, and it showed. Neither of her parents had been sleeping all that well in the past week, which was to be expected, of course. For however much _she_ would worry over the girls, the two of them left her in the dust.

Presently, her mother was sitting at the window with Nellie, mumbling what was probably – really, it was hard to tell – a lullaby, but getting interrupted by one yawn and then another. She would blink hard after each, like she was realizing she was falling asleep and wanted to jolt herself back. Her father, on the other hand, seemed to be sleepwalking as he tried to get Grace back to sleep.

“Mind if I cut in?” Maya went to him, meeting no resistance as she took the baby into her arms. “Bed, go.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he rubbed at his face as he went off.

“Hey, Mouse-Mouse,” Maya looked back to her sister with a smile, leaning to press a little kiss to her forehead. “What’s the matter, huh? Why are we crying now?” she asked, moving about, looking back to her mother, who was staring back at her now with a smile of her own. Maya went to go and sit next to her. “I think you two have gotten a bit mixed up on the definition of ‘girls’ night,’” Maya informed her sisters, making her mother chuckle, though it melted down into a yawn and another blinking session. It dawned on her maybe there had been some underlying motive to letting her sleep more these last few nights; now she could swoop in like this and assist. The task was taken on gladly.

“Made it up the stairs in one piece?” her mother asked, maybe in hopes that talking would help her stay awake.

“Yes,” Maya gave her a look, though she smiled in the end. “I discovered that, if you don’t run, you greatly reduce the risk of falling,” she went on, in a voice of wonderment, for the benefit of the baby in her arms, who finally seemed to be calming down. A thing she had learned about the twins: more often than not, just as one’s cries would incite the other to start, if you could get one of them to calm down, the other would rarely be far behind. And Gracie was always easiest to calm first.

Thankfully for all involved, this was one of those times where Gracie’s silenced cries had led to Nellie’s silenced cries not long after, like she’d realized her sister wasn’t crying anymore and thought ‘oh, we’re not doing this anymore, okay’ and stopped. Before long, they were asleep. Maya had gone and set Grace down in her crib before returning to her mother, getting Nellie from her and setting her down, too.

“Alright, now your turn, come on,” Maya pulled her mother up to her feet, leading her out of the nursery and back to the other room, where her father was already asleep again, though in that sort of light sleep which seemed perpetually braced to be interrupted by the sound of crying babies. Once Katy was back in bed, too, a yawn away from returning to her own light sleep, Maya made her way back to the basement door, taking the careful path down the steps and into her room before making a satisfying dive back for her bed and her pillow.

They’d find an easier rhythm after a while, she knew… she hoped. It had been less than a week and they were already that tired? They were never going to make it if they didn’t adjust. Well, no, not never, of course, she wouldn’t let it get like that. In just a matter of weeks, she’d be back in school, and as much as she’d want to help them, she would have to get some sleep in her or she’d be useless out there. They had to figure things out before then, and she had to think they realized this, too.

Well, it was still summer right now, wasn’t it? So as long as it was, they had an opportunity to hit the ground running with this whole thing, yeah? She lay there in her bed, laughing to herself for a moment, finding the callbacks to her incident with the run up the stairs just never ceased. But at the same time, it made her think about what they would do for some immediate relief. Not immediate as in right there in the middle of the night, but, well… Her parents needed some rest, and getting that for them would have to become her priority as much as her pleasure.

TO BE CONTINUED


	125. Her Love For Friends

It was as odd as it was hilarious to see two people, so evidently exhausted and wanting as much of the sleep that they needed, require so much convincing to actually accept it once it was offered to them. And yet here they were, on that next morning. When Maya had informed them that they had the day off, and she and her friends would see to the twins, they had at first tried to insist that they were fine, that they didn’t need the backup. Really, it felt like little more than their saying what they thought they should say. It had taken her vowing that all would be well, and that they would be awakened if the need arose – not that it would – for them to retreat back to their room… and relinquish the baby monitor which might incite them to come sneaking out when what they should be doing was sleep. But finally, they had gone and, no lie, they were asleep when she looked in on them less than two minutes later.

She had just taken the girls out into the living room, one by one, settling them cozy in their seats, when the others started to arrive. Nadine had arrived first, with Zay in tow, as Lucas parked the car. In next to no time, the twins had found themselves in the arms of the first two. Nadine had gotten Gracie, which worked out just fine, as it left Nellie to the ‘entertainment’ that was Zay when babies were involved. They’d seen this many times over, in the last couple of years, with him and Nadine’s littlest sister. Putting her little sunny sister in the care of that goof was either going to lead to wackiness… or a mess…

“Hey,” Lucas came along, an odd sort of smile on his face and a bag in his hand. Maya connected the two things quickly enough.

“From your mother?” she asked, pointing to the bag.

“For your parents,” he nodded. “It’s supposed to help them relax or something, but you don’t have to,” he shrugged.

“Well they’re sleeping for now, but hey, later, maybe,” she smiled, moving to kiss him hello.

Before long, there were more of them. Riley, and Dylan, and Asher, and Scott joined them. Joey couldn’t make it, and neither could Rebecca. Ray had said he might come if he got the chance, but he might not. That still left eight of them to see to a pair of infants, which was more than enough.

In no time, the second part of her plan for the day had been set in motion. While they rotated as far as who would sit with the babies, the rest of them had gone about divvying up some chores between themselves. Laundry, dishes, picking things up and cleaning around… It wasn’t much, but by the time it was over, it definitely felt like a lot, and Maya was once again left to so much gratitude for the friends she had. By lunch time, they were all sat together, eight teens and two babies, watching a movie as they ate.

The choice for the movie had immediately fallen to their wanting to show the twins some of their own childhood favorites. It didn’t matter that the two of them were all of a week old, they were all just happy at the thought of ‘passing something on,’ whether or not that something would manage to stay inside their memories.

After the movie, some of them had needed to head out, as they were working. They said goodbye to Asher, Zay, Nadine, and Dylan, which left Maya with Lucas, Riley, and Scott. The Shelby boy had shown himself remarkably skilled with the babies, which he explained as coming from experiences with his nieces and nephews, from his eldest siblings, and also with his younger sisters, two of them twins themselves. Maya had spent a good long while resisting the urge to start referring to him as ‘the baby whisperer.’

One more movie, and then Riley needed to head home. Scott offered to accompany her, and Maya couldn’t help but chuckle, seeing the smile that burst free on her friend’s face, before she was able to pull herself together and turn to the boy and accept his offer. Off they went now, leaving Maya and Lucas alone with the twins. They ended up in the nursery, on the bay window seat, each of them with one of the girls. He had Gracie and she had Nellie, and both the babes were sleeping quietly, which gave way to a lot of whispering between Maya and her boyfriend.

“Are we over asking about the knee?” he asked, and she was happy to see he had caught on.

“So much,” she sighed, giving her knee a bend and unbend or two in demonstration. There were still some marks, taking their time to heal, but she didn’t feel any great discomfort anymore. “So, other subject, go,” she demanded, leaving him to sit and ponder for a moment.

“School’s starting again soon?” he offered.

“Junior year, look out,” she nodded. No basketball again, sure, but still plenty with the quiz team, and work, and the band, and college… Still two years away, but the topic seemed unwilling to be ignored for much longer. They needed to start thinking about it for real.

“Do you think people will be weird, with you guys, the band?” he wondered.

“Don’t know about weird, but I guess we’ll have to see. Kind of trying not to psych myself out about it, to be honest.”

“You’ll be fine. And we’ll be there,” he promised, and she smiled. It seemed almost easy to say, as Gracie herself was an easy baby, but he was doing so well with her. Maya would look at him, sitting there, the little one in the crook of his arm, and how he would always ensure that she was safe, and at peace… Maybe it was all this future talk, with college and all, but it started putting thoughts in her heads, questions, of a future even beyond all that.

TO BE CONTINUED


	126. Her Love For Sisters

In the end, it seemed that for as much as the two of them had protested at first, Maya’s parents had properly benefited from their day’s rest, actually getting some sleep throughout the day, though they had also spent some of it awake and spending quiet times chatting. They had also emerged a couple of times for food and such, and of course they had looked in on the twins, because it wasn’t as though they would go and ignore their daughters, newborn or grown, because they needed some rest.

When night had come, Maya had not let them off the hook though. She wanted them to take the night off as well. She had things handled, she said. She could feed them, change them, get them back to sleep, whatever was needed. Or as she put it…

“We’re having a sleepover, sisters only.”

In a way, it felt like she wasn’t just doing this for their sake. She was also doing it for herself. She wanted to have as many moments to bond with Nellie and Grace as she could, even if at this point in time they couldn’t exactly do more than look at her, or hold her finger, or generally _not_ fuss when she held them in her arms. Ever since she and Lucas had let the subject of college float around, she’d been thinking about it more. And the thing she thought about the most was… What would happen with her sisters when she went?

It was no secret that a part of her had envisioned going to college back in New York. To some extent, whether or not they’d follow through on it, all her friends had been entertaining this image of the future where they would all be going to college in the same city, including their faraway friends, Farkle and Smackle, back in New York. Whether that would happen or not was another matter entirely, but the thing it left her to recall again and again was the very strong possibility she would be leaving Texas for a period of time when she started the next step of her education.

She would go away, and her sisters… would be right here, with her parents. They’d be all of two years old when she’d start, six when she’d finish.

Those were going to be important years in her life, sure, but in _their_ lives… She never wanted to be this faraway person for them, and now these two years until she’d graduate high school felt that much more important all of a sudden, and not just for the actual school part.

She’d brought her pillow from the basement, along with her sleeping bag, and she’d set them up by the window. She had run through all the things she might need whenever her sisters would wake up, and she was ready.

Well, the babies were sleeping at the moment, so that was her cue to do the same, until she’d have to get up for them. So, she lay down on her sleeping bag, in her old room, staring at the ceiling. Was it strange that it brought her back to all the nights she’d slept in here? Four years… There was that reminder again, of the passing of time. But it was true, looking at the ceiling, she could almost feel like she was back in her bed, that her bed was here in this room. She wasn’t lying where her bed did when it had been in this room, sure, but it didn’t matter. And lying here as she did, she realized that, for how bare the ceiling was, she could still see the mural she and the others had painted on the walls. She wondered if maybe Nellie and Grace could see it from their cribs. She hoped… she hoped…

She didn’t know when she had drifted off to sleep or for how long, but in time she was awakened by a cry soon joined by another. Nellie, the instigator, and Gracie, the follower. _Here we go…_

“I’m up, I’m here, hey… hey…” she scrambled to her feet, moving to Nellie’s crib and picking her up, holding her close and rubbing her back as she moved to the other crib. “Okay, right, there _are_ two of you, and that’s exactly how many arms I’ve got, so let’s work this out, yeah?” she hushed, trying not to let any amount of uncertainty get a hold of her. Lowering the rail, she managed to pick Gracie up with one arm, minding her head and all, so that finally she had both her crying sisters there in her arms. “Hey, look at us, we’ve got this, don’t we?” she hushed, walking around with them for a moment. “Now what seems to be the problem, ladies?”

So she was being cheery, for their sakes, but she knew full well the second she picked them up what was the primary issue at the moment, which was all the more reason for her to distract herself along with them, rather than to focus on the stench. _Two diapers, no waiting…_

“Good news, bad news, I can only do one of you at a time, so someone’s going to have to be patient.” If she’d been after a night of discovery and learning, she absolutely got it here. Picking them both up had seemed like the thing to do, but now she knew she needed to put one of them back down. So, trusting her to be the most understanding of the two, Maya set Grace back down in her crib and went about changing Nellie’s diaper. When this had been accomplished, she’d brought the clean one back to her crib and taken up her next client.

When both girls had been cleaned, two bottles were prepared. Maya wasn’t sure how she’d gotten to this point, maybe she’d turned into a tornado, but the next thing she knew, she had the girls all set and she helped them with their bottles. Silence reigned in the nursery, and Maya just couldn’t help but smile with pride. She had envisioned something of a disaster, honestly, but actually she had done fairly well for herself, hadn’t she? Alright, so it was one night, and there had been a bit of a learning curve involved, but it still felt pretty good.

“What do you two think, should we have more sleepovers, just the three of us? No parents allowed?” she whispered with conspiratorial mischief in her voice. Grace blinked at her; Nellie spit up. “That’s what I thought,” Maya nodded with a smirk, wiping up. “School is going to make things a bit complicated, but don’t you worry, I’ve got you two penciled in for weekends, deal?”

When it was time to set the twins back in to their cribs, Maya carefully put them down, settling them comfortably before crouching in the space between the two cribs, where she could reach in and just touch their hands, and she broke out a lullaby and another, until they were asleep. Even when they’d gotten there, she couldn’t seem to let go of them just yet, her sweet little sisters…

She could feel those thoughts still playing in her head, the sadness of a separation that was still so far away, and it still felt ridiculous to wallow in that space, but here she was. How could one _not_ feel bad at the thought of being away from these two little girls? One week old and she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them behind, what was she going to be like in two years?

“Alright, let’s make another deal,” she whispered, looking from one crib to the other. “We’re going to pull ourselves together and just have a lot of fun, and we’re not going to do it because of what will or won’t happen. We’re going to do it because we’re sisters, us three, and I don’t know what you two are feeling in those sleepy heads of yours, but that’s okay. I think we understand each other pretty well, don’t you? Keep sleeping if you agree… Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she smiled, sighing to herself.

When morning came, Katy and Shawn came into the nursery to look in on the girls, only to discover Maya had fallen asleep, lying down in the space where she’d been sitting, between the cribs, having pulled her pillow from where she’d been meant to sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED


	127. Their Future in Junior Year

Lucas woke up before the sun was up on the morning of their first day back at school. It didn’t spare him from his mother’s barely contained emotional outburst at the fact that ‘her little Luke’ was starting yet another school year, but at least it earned him a solid breakfast, enough that he left to go and pick up Maya and Riley with some leftovers packed up and ready to share, which earned him many thanks. He’d also been able to go and pick up Maya early enough that he could accompany her as she took the dogs on their morning walk before heading for school. They’d been brought back home in time, after the twins’ birth, and it had been as smooth of an adjustment as they could hope for. Tuck, Ghost, and Queen had all become instantly enamored with the two small creatures now living in their old room, while Nellie and Grace had expressed curiosity and apprehension respectively, before coming to accept the dogs as friendly furry members of the family.

By the time they made it through the walk, went to pick up Riley, and headed off to school, they were still thankfully early enough that they reached their bench to find it unoccupied, and so they had gone to sit there, waiting for their friends. They would all start to arrive before long, alone or in pairs, trios… The mood that seemed to prevail among them was just… calm. This new year starting didn’t seem to grab at their nerves the way previous ones had done. They had new schedules to explore and navigate, but that was more exciting than anything else.

“We’ve got three classes together this year, that’s one more than we had last year,” Lucas realized, as he held Maya’s schedule. French and History, those were the same as the year before, but on top of it, they had Physics together, as she hadn’t gone for advanced placement in this one, like she had the previous year with Chemistry.

“Do we?” she asked, planting her chin in her hand, elbow to her knee, staring at him with pointed interest. “I wouldn’t know, seeing as you won’t show me _your_ schedule. I’m still not sure why,” she squinted at him. He wouldn’t meet her eye, and he looked almost… shy?

“Ask him about second period,” Zay piped up, sitting astride the back of the bench, eating an apple. Lucas looked like he might have knocked him off for that, had he been of another character. With a sigh, he’d handed over the sheet, and Maya had guided her finger along the list to discover just what it was about second period that had made him squirrelly. After a beat, she’d turned her head to stare at her boyfriend, barely containing a smile.

“Dance class?” she asked. He didn’t move. “Dance class?” she repeated. He pointed over his shoulder.

“I talked him into it. You’ll thank me later,” Zay told Maya, who stared back at him with a look that said ‘I _will_ knock you over.’ He hurried to stand, tripping, falling, and scrambling back up to his feet in all of three seconds. Maya looked back to Lucas, wanting to hear his version of it.

“I just sort of figured… why not… And then it became… why… did I do this?” he sighed.

“Hey, hey, come on, you’ll do great,” she moved immediately into confidence mode, closing her arms around him, giving him a squeezing hug. “You can be our backup dancer,” she grinned, and he tried so hard to frown, but he just started to laugh.

Comparing the two schedules now, she could see what they were working with. They were starting the day together, in French class, though they would be split after that, until lunch, only to share sixth and seventh periods together. He was still doing baseball, she was still swimming, still drawing, though _he_ had traded in woodworking for metalworking. She had two advanced classes this year instead of three, which was not so much because she couldn’t handle three the previous year, only that it felt like the thing to do.

So off they went, their first day of junior year coming off relatively normal. They were reunited with some old classmates, met with ones they knew less or not at all, the same going for teachers, including one Mr. Matthews in seventh period. Going through these halls on this day, Maya felt the satisfaction of another year starting where she didn’t feel her stomach in knots at having to go back to school, while Lucas felt some of that, too, having distanced himself so far now from the image he’d carried on his heels before and after his suspension.

Lunch time had, of course, been devoted to nothing, not one of any of their classes, except second period for Lucas and Zay. Everyone wanted to hear about dance class.

The rest of the day went on its way, and when it was finally over, they gathered, all of them, at the diner. They talked of classes, and teachers, assignments and projects on the horizon, but the other thing, the topic that seemed to insist on poking its head out to say hello just when they didn’t see it coming, was the one they found themselves discussing the most as they sat there that day. College, refusing to cast itself as being ‘two whole years away,’ was what it came down to, and the big question, which Nadine ended up asking aloud.

“Do you guys know what you want to study?”

TO BE CONTINUED


	128. Their Future in Fields

It was like they’d just dropped something in the middle of the table, and no one really knew what it was so no one wanted to touch it, just waited to see who would do it first. So far, no one was stepping up to the plate. Everyone was suddenly very interested in their food, their phones, textbooks if they’d pulled them out. It was almost ridiculous, and finally Maya had found the best way to break the ice.

“Well, what are you going to do?” she asked Nadine, since she’d been the one to bring up the matter in the first place. Nadine looked like she’d expected this turn, and for as much as they would have expected her to have it all figured out, if she could put the question to them, there was something of hesitation in her face before she spoke up.

“Alright, so I guess I’ve been working my way up, figuring out what I wanted to be for a while. I want to end up in medical school. At first, I didn’t want to commit to one thing, because I would tell myself I might change my mind later on, but then when I could still stop and tell myself that this was what I wanted after a couple of years, I figured maybe it was really what I was supposed to do, and if it was then… I’d need to get myself minded, focused on what steps I needed to take next. Then maybe I’ll figure out what specific field I would go into.”

As declarations went, it was almost sort of shocking, though for specific reasons. On the one hand, it seemed more or less like the most obvious thing. Nadine was possibly the most focused of their group, the one they could very easily imagine turning to in a crisis, because she would be the thinker, the one who could look through the haze and tell everyone else what to do, and they would do it, because of course she’d be right. If someone was to be in charge of tending to someone sick or injured, wouldn’t you want her? But then there was the other hand, the side that couldn’t believe they were only reaching this conclusion now, only hearing about these plans now. It made them realize there was still plenty they didn’t know about each other, and now that this was dawning on them, they had to wonder what other discoveries they would make today, as they shared their plans for the future.

“With this bunch, it might not be a bad idea to have a doctor on hand,” Rebecca piped in, making the others laugh, Nadine, too.

“I haven’t really figured out what I want to become,” Asher jumped in after that, and they looked to him. “Right now, I just think I’d like to be an English major,” he went on, shrugging his shoulders as he dipped and spun a couple of fries into the puddle of ketchup in his plate. “Once I’m there, maybe I’ll see where it leads me.” So, what it came down to, what they were able to make of it, was that, to some extent, he and Nadine were in the same general headspace. They had some idea of where they wanted to go, but it was only part of the journey, the rest of it hidden behind a second door they couldn’t reach yet.

“You could become a teacher, then if you were at our school, you could work with my dad, mess around with him a bit,” Riley offered.

“I will keep that in mind,” Asher tipped his head to her with a smirk, and she grinned with the shared mischief they had cooked up. Maybe he was still figuring out what he wanted to do, but then that was all of them, really, and it was a bit reassuring to say what they had all been thinking quietly aloud. For whatever plans they had cooked up in their heads, a lot of it was still question marks, and that was kind of to be expected, with where they were in their lives.

Maya couldn’t help but wonder something else about Asher’s particular indecisiveness, even though she couldn’t speak it out, not in present company; the secret was still being kept, by her, and Lucas, for him, and Ray. The thing she found herself thinking though had to do with Ray’s own plans. He was a senior this year, _his_ path was further traveled than any of theirs had yet to be, and next year he wouldn’t be among them anymore, might be very far away, for all they knew. And Asher, seeing this year as the prelude to their separation, leading into that year where they’d be split… maybe it made it harder to think about what he wanted for himself. There was no way of knowing whether that was right or not, at least not here and now, but even if she had the chance to put the question to him, she wasn’t really sure she would. He might not have wanted to talk about it, and if he did, well he had her, and Lucas, whenever he was ready.

“Okay, so who’s next, anyone else want to share?” she put the question to the group, knowing it was as good as opening the way for someone to turn it on her, like she’d done to Nadine earlier, but then instead it was Rebecca who held up her hand, as though she was sat in class, answering a teacher, which made the rest of them laugh. “Right then, Miss Fitz, what’ll it be?”

TO BE CONTINUED


	129. Their Future in Choices

Having hosted Smackle over the summer, it seemed as though Rebecca had been entrusted with the management of the band by the New York contingent of TXNY. Earlier in the day, all through this first day back at school really, she had been there, eagle-eyed to any potential moments where her assistance might come in handy. There _had_ been that sort of uncertainty among the group, wondering how Maya, Riley, and Nadine’s return to school following the summer of TXNY’s viral burst on to the scene would all pan out. They had just put up another video the day before, to mark the end of summer, and like all their previous videos, it had given way to a bump up as far as followers, but it also meant a surge in the less desirable comments. As much as they had gotten themselves to a point where they didn’t let themselves get affected by those at all, they knew how school could get. They’d gone through that whole situation right after the basketball teams’ removal the previous fall, and that was the thing they kept thinking about the most, whether they meant to or not. Maybe, all of a sudden, the online detractors would make themselves heard out here now.

And there had been a couple of incidents, one at lunch, another in choir, which Dylan had told Maya about as soon as he’d reached history class in the following period, as she wasn’t in the choir, unlike him, and Riley and Nadine. Lunch had just been a cluster of senior boys passing by their table while giving a twistedly off-key rendition of one of their songs before continuing on their way laughing, but in choir it had been a couple of girls in the class trying to put Nadine and Riley on the spot since they thought they were ‘so damn good’ all of a sudden.

“Who was it?” Rebecca had asked, giving off the impression she had already started ‘her list’ after the thing at lunch, and she was going to be keeping an eye on all of them from now on.

Riley and Nadine had both insisted that it was fine, adding that they had not needed to do a thing. Their teacher – who was once again Gina Orlando, Dylan’s stepmother – had overheard the challenge and told the challengers that instead of calling on someone else’s technique, they might see to their own, which could still use some finetuning. That had shut them up quick.

“What do you think they’d say if they knew Mrs. Orlando’s been coaching us over the summer?” Nadine had asked with a smirk.

Now, with the day over, and the question of college on the table, the business of overlooking the girls and the band was left aside, as Rebecca reflected on her own intentions.

“I haven’t made up my mind,” she admitted. “I have ideas, a lot of them, but none that really feel like ‘the one.’” When they asked what the choices were, she sighed and started listing them out on her fingers. “I could keep playing soccer, but that’s not going to be everything. I’ve been thinking maybe engineering… or culinary school.”

“Just don’t get the two mixed up,” Joey offered up to his girlfriend, and they laughed at this rare joke out of the quiet boy.

“Anyway, those are the ones I’m putting into consideration right now. I figure if I think about just a couple at a time, I can eliminate some and it won’t feel so overwhelming,” Rebecca followed up with a smile. It was definitely a sound plan, and hopefully it would pan out for her.

“What about you, Joe?” Asher asked him with a helpful brotherly nudge, that he might share what his twin already knew.

“I want to continue with theater,” he told them, which was not nearly as much of a surprise to them as it might have been before they found out about his getting a part in a local production. They were learning more and more about their friend, discovering sides of him they would never have expected for him to have not too long ago. “So, I’ll be going for drama school. Been talking to some of the people at the theater, they’ve been giving me advice, said they could help with my application.” It was just something strangely wonderful, to see the guarded flame that resided in his face as he spoke about his dreams. For having watched him stand on a stage and practice, they knew it was more than founded. He just became someone else, someone open, and alive in a whole other way than he was when he was just himself, like he was reserving it all just for those moments when he could express the thing that lived in his heart.

“You know where they have a lot of good ones for that? New York,” Riley was proud to state the obvious, as it fed into the other dream they’d all sort of been aiming for, that they should all end up there together, in some shape or form.

“You don’t say,” Maya intoned dramatically, like she’d had no idea.

“What a coincidence, right?” Riley followed in this small scene of theirs, getting chuckles from their friends. As they’d quieted down though, her face had resettled into thought, looking around the table for a moment before saying what was on her mind. “What if we have no idea what we want to become?”

TO BE CONTINUED


	130. Their Future in the Unknown

It was sort of to be expected that not all of them would know exactly what they wanted to do after high school. It was still so far away, except not so far as it used to be anymore, and thus close enough that they had to start really thinking about it. Suddenly it started to feel like it was actually so close that they were running out of time to decide what the rest of their lives was going to be… Could they really do anything else except feel a bit of panic? Even those of them who’d already shared their piece had shown that they remained to a degree undecided themselves. At least they had some kind of idea to go with though, right? So, to not have anything at all almost seemed like they were several steps back from where the rest of them were, and it didn’t feel like they could bring it up without putting that discomfort on display.

Riley had put it on the table though, asking what would happen if they didn’t know what they wanted to become, and looking around their group, it couldn’t be that she’d be the only one feeling that sort of indecisiveness. Now the real question was whether or not she’d be the only one to say it aloud.

“I’m not sure I even want to go to college,” Dylan was the first to speak, and they turned to him. He shrugged. “I mean, if I don’t know what I want to do with my life, then why do I have to decide now? I could realize what I want in… five years, ten years, and then what, I just won’t go because I already studied to be something else and gave all that time, that money, all for something I just did because it was what people thought I should do? I can wait, I can do it right, when I’m supposed to do it.”

They all looked at him now, like the most unexpected source for so much of what he’d said. It was so easy to write the boy off, for how much of an easy-going, silly and smiling outlook he had on life as a whole, and then he’d go and say something like this and you’d remember it was a part of him, too, whether he paraded it out or not. There really was no arguing with it, although it did leave the rest of them to think about what he said. If they didn’t have something that made them want to learn, to strive for, then what were they doing?

Maya looked across to Riley now, seeing her as she thought about what Dylan had said. She could just about interpret the look on her friend’s face, turn it into words. It told her that Riley wholly saw the merit in Dylan’s way of thinking, but that at the same time she wasn’t sure it would be the path _she_ would end up deciding to follow. She didn’t know what she wanted to be, not at this time, but she still felt like in two years’ time she would be in college. Certainly, she’d run across some solid arguments from her parents, the teacher and the lawyer, about the merits of her continuing on with college. And she wouldn’t want to be set aside, out of the experiences all her friends would be going through. The only thing that really stood in her way at this point was this cluelessness for what she’d choose to do, and the terrible possibility that she might never find ‘the thing’ that would change all of it for her.

“I haven’t got a clue either,” Zay added now, “Except I’ll get my rear handed to me if I don’t do something.” The others chuckled, just a bit.

“I thought you said you wanted to…” Nadine started to say, but he shrugged.

“Not anymore,” he admitted. “Nothing’s stuck for more than a couple days, there’s always something else, and then, well, the first thing couldn’t have been it, right? If I’m going to be one thing in life, then it has to be The Thing, capital T The, capital T Thing, like he said,” he pointed off to Dylan, who nodded. “It’ll come. Whatever my place is going to be in the world, it’ll come,” he added, with a determination that felt either exaggerated for emphasis, or filled with an unwavering passion… They couldn’t say for sure, and at this point they preferred to think it was the second option.

It was as reassuring as it was troublesome, to hear of how they might not be alone in their setback along the path. It would have been nice if they could tell themselves that it would all resolve itself before long, but instead it reminded them that it could draw on much longer, for an unset amount of time, without relief.

Lucas looked around the tables, at those of them who had spoken by now, and those who hadn’t, and it left him to remember how among their group, while the vast majority of them was in the same year and therefore going through this turn in their lives, there were two who stood apart, one for being ahead of them, and one of them behind. Ray, the senior, and Scott, the sophomore. And as he looked from one to the other, he ended up turning to Ray. He had one year on them, they’d been hearing of his own progress, just a bit, but at this point it seemed like as good of a time as any to want to know more.

TO BE CONTINUED


	131. Their Future in Near & Far

Lucas would have been in that same position, same as Ray, and then he and Maya the same as Ray and Asher… He would have been finishing out high school this year, and he would have been gone off to college next year while _she_ had her own senior year. He couldn’t stop thinking about it for some reason, and maybe for that he felt that much more compassionate to his friends’ situation. It was only made worse for the fact that they were keeping it all a secret, because circumstances forced them to.

“How’s it going with you and college?” he asked Ray. The other boy, his old friend, looked up at him like he hadn’t realized he was part of this conversation. He shrugged.

“Mostly I’m just following along, reading this, filling that out, tests, applications… Once I said I wanted to become a surgeon, my parents were all over it, I’m basically just tagging along for the ride at this point.”

“But you do actually want to do it, right? You’re not just doing it because they want you to?” Maya asked, like she needed to make sure.

“Not at all,” Ray promised. “It’s what I want, it’s just… very fortunate that it’s something they’re very motivated to support.”

“How do you think _they’d_ react if you did like he said?” Zay asked, pointing over to Dylan.

“Yeah, let’s not even think about that one,” Ray laughed it off, though Lucas saw the underlying thought, just barely. Which would be worse, him telling them he wouldn’t go to college, or him telling them he was gay? “Anyway, it’s a lot of stuff, and it can get overwhelming, but if you don’t let it get too bad, I mean… you’ll be fine,” he told them all, reassuring more than one in the process. “You, too,” he turned to Scott, who sat at his side and had been shrinking just a bit at all this talk. He still had a whole three years to go before graduating.

“Do you know what you’d like to become?” Nadine asked him, in her way of including him within the question they had all been answering.

“I do, actually,” he admitted, catching them just a bit by surprise. How was it that _he_ sounded the most confident about his future?

“Well, Mr. Shelby, now you gotta tell us all about it,” Maya smirked, planting her chin in her hand in her best inquisitive face. She had already seen a grin on Riley’s face which told her perhaps _she_ already knew the answer, and it was taking all her self-control not to blurt it out before he got the chance to say it.

“I want to be a sportscaster,” he told them with a firm nod. Now that this was out, Riley couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“He’s very good,” she told the others with a proud smile. “We were watching a game the other day, we put it on mute, and then he did his thing.”

“I made up some of it,” he explained, looking like he was having a bit of trouble controlling his own smile.

Lucas just looked at Maya throughout this small exchange, practically seeing the gear turn in her head, down in the space occupied by what he’d heard her refer to as ‘the Scoley Drama.’ He knew she was trying so hard to act delicately in this situation, as it related back to Riley, but if it was up to her, he knew she’d be standing up right about now, gesticulating from Riley to Scott, from Scott to Riley, shouting something like ‘come on!’ or ‘wake up!’ or ‘would you just go out already and get on with it?’ But she’d sworn she wouldn’t interfere, not with this one, and so she could only sit, and watch, and fume on the inside that the pair of them were being as obvious as they were being oblivious. He coiled his arm with hers and she looked at him. He gave her a knowing nod, and she sighed, tipping her head to rest against his shoulder.

“You should replace the guy talking over the speakers at the soccer games,” Rebecca suggested, while reaching for the tomato slices Joey had kept for her at the edge of his plate, knowing she’d take them off his hand in a heartbeat, which worked out for both of them.

“Please do,” Nadine chuckled at this.

“Do you think they’d let me?” Scott asked, looking genuinely intrigued.

“We’ll start a petition if we have to. Maybe more people will come if we get an announcer who actually does what he’s supposed to do,” Rebecca told him, and he smiled.

They were all being an attentive and enthusiastic audience to their sophomore friend, as they’d convinced him to do a bit of his announcer voice, when Maya’s phone gave off the familiar tone of an incoming video call. She’d almost forgotten, with all this talk, that she’d told Farkle and Smackle to call her, so they could all talk about their first day back at school.

She quickly answered the call, turning her phone about so everyone could wave and say hello. When Farkle asked what they were all up to, Maya started telling him about the conversation they’d been having, about their plans – as set or unset as they may have been – for college and the future to come. She told him about everyone’s plans who had spoken so far, and Smackle was the one to chime in and point out that the only ones in their group who hadn’t said their part yet were her and Lucas. So now it was to be their turn. Maya looked back to Lucas as though to ask if he wanted to go first or not.

TO BE CONTINUED


	132. Their Future in Careers

The two of them had talked about this before, over some afternoon or another, hanging out together. Truth be told, both of them could say that it was in talking to each other that they’d truly come to know what they wanted to do. It was never about either of them talking the other into anything, but then they would talk out some thing or another, and the more they’d say, after a while, would make everything suddenly that much clearer.

When Maya looked to him, he smiled and given a nod. He would go first, gladly. Besides, he was pretty sure it would be almost obvious to some of them, if they’d known him long enough, seen him in the company of his intended clientele…

“I want to be a veterinarian,” he declared to the group, and as expected, the declaration was greeted with a solid share of nods mixed in with ‘oh well of course’ looks.

If he thought back to when he was a kid, to the furthest back his memories went, he could remember the very first time he had ever said he wanted to be anything, it was that. Some of the kids would say they wanted to be cops, firemen, doctors, anything like that… Little Lucas Friar had said he wanted to take care of animals. One of those who had nurtured this wish the most was his grandfather. Pappy Joe would take him around a lot, and when he’d take him to see any kind of animal, those were the best days. He had told Maya about how he would stand there and listen when people told him about what this one ate or how this one preferred to be touched, or not touched. He had seen injuries, he had seen births… He had seen a death once and it had saddened him so deeply, but he had still wanted to know what had happened before, and what would happen after.

He had even told her how he used to envision having a house, a farm house, where people would bring their animals to him, and he would tend to them. It was sort of a silly kid’s dream at first, but really it had kind of stuck with him, and it had evolved over time. He hadn’t thought about it for a while, but all the talk of careers and futures had brought it back to the surface. He had never told anyone about it, not his parents, not his friends, just her. She’d smiled at him, vowing that the secret would be safe with her, and he didn’t doubt this for a second. Of course, now that the memory had reasserted itself in his mind, it seemed inclined to do nothing but keep on growing. He could see that future clearer than ever, and now, when he thought about himself out there, it was him, and her, and one day, well… who knew who else?

And Maya? What did she herself becoming? Honestly, before those talks she and Lucas had had, she would have thought for sure she would have been one of those who had absolutely no idea where she was headed. That might have been some leftover self-doubt from way back when, but whatever it was, she wasn’t feeling it anymore. She’d talked with Lucas, and it was wonderfully strange how just talking and talking it out could end up bringing something to the surface which had been building itself up, without her realizing, right there in her mind.

For a while, the root of her wishes for her future lived in her art, where _she_ could live of her art. From the moment it had enraptured her heart it had seemed like the simplest thing to think. _If I could just do this forever, I would be happy._ And in a way that was still very much part of her thought process, but then it had become more than that. Art had become this thing in her life that felt like a release valve to all that would happen around her. The best parts and the worst… the crippling fear she’d felt when she’d been forced to leave everything she’d ever known behind, trying to figure out who she was in this new world she’d been dropped into… She’d wrapped all those pages around herself like a security blanket in the form of the old mural around the room which now housed her twin sisters. And then there had been friendships, and discoveries, and… love… The pieces that charted the evolution of her relationship with the boy now sat at her side, oh… That could be an exhibit in itself, if she ever dared to open it up to people.

But it wasn’t just about the art itself, the drawings, the paintings, the photographs, no… It was the people, the ones who had nurtured this vehicle in her life that had allowed her to grow the way it did. Her mother, buying her that first sketchbook and pencils on the road to Texas, Lucas and their multiple adventures with the museum, and Shawn and his camera, and her teachers… Year to year, school to school, she’d known some wonderful teachers who had not only nurtured her love but shared their own, and they had helped hers to grow. They had given her so much… and that was what she’d told Lucas. _If I could be that for even one kid one day…_ And that had been the thing, the eureka moment.

“I want to be an art teacher,” she told her friends in the diner that day. “Anywhere, K through 12, I just want to be in that moment in kids’ lives,” she went on with a smile any of her friends would know as meaning one thing alone: Nothing was going to stand in Maya Hart’s way. This was what she wanted, and this was what she’d do.

Now with all of them around the table having spoken their piece, it felt like they had accomplished something, even if some of them remained uncertain. That was alright. Now they could depend on one another, and maybe it would help guide them into finding what they wanted.

“What about you guys?” Riley asked, looking to the small moving image of Farkle and Smackle on Maya’s phone screen. “What do you want to do?”

TO BE CONTINUED


	133. Their Future in the Future

Any of them sitting around the table in the diner would fully expect the two over in New York to know exactly what they wanted to make of themselves, and for once they were about as right as they could ever hope to be. In little time, Smackle had informed the rest of them that she intended to go to law school and become a lawyer and possibly a judge in the long run. The image of her up there, on either side of the bench, left them with the genuine impression that they would hope with all their might that she’d be there as _their_ lawyer and not the other party, or else they would surely lose.

As for Farkle, he said he wanted to go into business, which was another non-starter for surprises, both for how it tied back to his father and for, well, having known him growing up, where Maya and Riley were concerned. Despite all this though, as he went on to explain what had led him to this choice, they could see there really was more to it than the obvious, and it all tied into his and Smackle’s shared vision for their future. Farkle may not have known what this hypothetical company of his would end up being about, but he knew he wanted it to enable him to help people out in the world. And it wasn’t just him. The two of them wanted to work together, use the skills they would develop in tandem. If any two people were going to pull it off, Farkle Minkus and Isadora Smackle would, no doubt to it.

It was right for them to have become part of this conversation they had all been having, really. When they envisioned this shift, out of high school and into college, they could see their friends being part of it, part of this dream of theirs where they all got to go to school together, out in New York. It _was_ still just that, still just a dream, they knew, just as much as they knew that there was no guarantee that it would all come true. There was no guarantee every last one of them would get into the schools they wanted to get into, and adding to this the fact that some of them didn’t even know what they wanted to study or if they wanted to go to college at all…

What they were left with was a blurry vision of their future, while the real one was something that changed and shifted as they lined up to any number of hurdles they needed to jump. Two years of high school left, and tests, and applications, and waiting, and knowing, and money, and everything… so many things, too many.

Later, after they had all dispersed from the diner, Maya and Lucas ended up back at his house, in his room, still unable to think about anything else. What they were coming to figure out more and more was that as much as they could put together a picture of their future as they wanted it, that imaginary life was still just that, and they could only really hope to accomplish something as close to it as possible… or maybe they would end up with something completely different and they would learn that it was good, too, better even. Or it could all go very, very wrong… As clear as that ‘future’ was in their heads, as clear as their present and everything in between was a great blur. The clearer that blur got, the more it would cause that clear future to change, to adjust, into the one future that would actually be real.

“Hey,” Lucas nudged Maya as they sat there, on the floor, backs to the side of his bed. She had Dash in her lap, had been giving her good scratches since the dog had come pattering merrily after them. He had seen Maya do it enough times to know what motivated her by how she went about it. This time, she was petting the dog in such a way that said she was thinking about something she didn’t entirely know how to deal with, which made cuddling up to the happy Dash a much better alternative than to think about what was in her head. “What’s wrong?” he asked, turning toward her.

“Nothing,” she sighed, shaking her head, which he took to mean ‘it’s not ‘wrong,’ just problematic.’ She looked at him now, biting her lip for a beat, hesitating. “I’m not sure I want to go back to New York for college,” she confessed. It was not what he’d expected, especially for how it had basically been her who had started them all on this idea, but it didn’t take much thinking to figure out what might be motivating this change of heart, or more likely who.

“You don’t want to leave your sisters,” he said it aloud, and she let out a breath, leaning to him.

“I know they’re not going to forget me just because I go to college, but it’s still going to change things, we’re not going to be the same together. This morning, before you came to pick me up, I was with them, in the nursery. I had Gracie in my arms, and she was holding on to me. She looked up me, and… She knows me, they both know me now. I can see it in their eyes when they look at me. I know they’re still small, and maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see, but I don’t think so. They’ll be two when I leave, they won’t see me for weeks and months at a time except on Skype or something. After a while, I’ll just become like some relative that lives far away. They’ll be happy to see me, but it won’t be the same.”

It probably wasn’t going to be like that, and some part of her had to know it, but she couldn’t know for sure. All she had to hang on to was the fear, and he wasn’t sure what was the best way to respond, to tell her that everything would be fine, or to lean into the fear, even just a little bit. Whether or not it was the fear though, he also had to consider the possibility that the right thing to do might actually be for her to follow this instinct all the way.

“New York has a lot of great programs for what you want to do,” he finally said, the coming of a ‘but’ resounding clearly in his pause. “But there could be some great ones closer to Austin, too. And veterinary programs, too.”

“That’s true,” she admitted calmly, and he smiled at her.

“Wherever you go, I go,” he promised, grasping her hand in his. Dash looked up at them when he did this, fixing them both with a look that seemed to say ‘where did the cuddles go?’ It made Maya laugh, and she got back to it with her other hand.

“I think she might want in on that, too. You, me, and the dog,” she tipped her head, her version of the promise he had made her. “What about _my_ dogs? Think my parents and me can have like… shared canine custody?”

“Sure, that’s probably a thing,” he agreed gladly.

She was feeling better, if only for this moment, but that was still something. They couldn’t know for sure how it would all end up, if they really would go to New York, or if they’d stay in Texas, or somewhere closer. And if they did stay, there was no saying whether the others would choose to do the same, or if they’d still go to New York as they’d planned, or if this would give them all license to spread their wings wherever they may take them… and then they might _all_ be separated… _But not us. You, me, the dog. Where you go, I go._

“So, homework?” she asked, putting an end to the subject.

“Might as well,” he nodded with a sigh, looking to their bags, which had been left in a heap just inside his bedroom door. “Want to do French first? You can probably keep Dash on you for that part.”

“Oh, yeah, I choose that one, what about you?” she crooned, giving the happy pup a good belly rub. Dash looked very pleased with this plan. _“Oui, ma belle petite…_ Dash _… tu restes avec moi, d’accord?”_ The dog barked. “Yup, she’s staying with me,” Maya beamed, as Lucas moved to get their bags and got out the book. They got to their studies, putting the talk of the future aside. The future was in the future. They had senior year next year, and junior year was only starting. The present was right now.

TO BE CONTINUED


	134. Their Approach to an Offer

The school year was a couple weeks into its run now, which always felt like something of a relief, as they’d find. They would fall into the rhythm of it all by then, their new classes, new schedule, new teachers and things to do. Everything else in their lives, from families, to friends, to boyfriends, or girlfriends, or not-so-secret secret crushes, to jobs, and extra-curriculars, and bands… Somehow it went from feeling like so many things fit into so little time to feeling like they had it all good and sorted. And as hectic as it could all still feel, they were managing better than they could have hoped to.

Maya loved to hear about what Lucas did in his classes as much as she loved to tell him about her own. Along with drawing, this year she had been thrilled at the thought of taking on a graphic design class as an elective. It had meant leaving photography aside, but the way she saw it, she loved it enough already to be able to keep on learning on her own… especially when she had her father to stand by her side on that one. The new class allowed her to expand on the mediums she had so far explored, and really that had become her goal, now that she knew where she was headed. She wanted to expand her horizons as far as they would stretch, whenever she could do it.

Beyond that, everything was about as she could have expected or wanted it to be. Even her two advances classes didn’t feel so daunting. Sure, they were challenging, each in their own right, but not so much as to overwhelm her. After the previous year’s advanced load, she had gotten to a place where she really felt an unwavering confidence inside her, and that… that just blew her mind, again and again.

And the Basket Cases were still going strong, gathering regularly, and now preparing for their first competition… And this year, as Mr. Matthews had told them, they just might see their little team expand beyond the boundaries of their city, their state… and she couldn’t wait.

But as exciting as her side of it was, maybe for the fact that she was on the outside looking in by virtue of his stories, she was even more excited to hear about Lucas and _his_ classes. He had moved from woodworking to metal this year, which had put this image in her head of him standing there, giant goggles and gloves on him, loud machinery and sparks flying everywhere… Whether or not that was actually how it went down, what she mostly saw was him coming in to lunch late by the end of the first week with a bandage around his hand. As agile as he’d always been, he’d injured himself here just shy of needing to go to the hospital. Instead, the nurse had fixed him up, but now his hand was going to hurt for a while, and it would sideline him on a couple of his classes. She’d been doing the driving to and from school since then, which involved no shortage of her milking this chauffeur job for all it was worth. At least he didn’t have to worry about her fussing over him nearly half as much as his mother would and had.

If his cut had gotten in the way of his involvement in the metalwork class and in baseball, it did not impair him with the dance class. As borderline shy as he’d been about telling her or the others how it was going – a problem which Zay did not share in the least – it turned out their good man Huckleberry had ‘potential.’ Oh, to be sure, he had been struggling since the first class, as his teacher had been forced to point out again and again. But for all the struggling involved there was an equal amount of effort exerted out, and when the effort met the struggle, it translated into progress. Slow, snail’s pace progress, but progress nonetheless, the kind that could be worthy of the word potential. If he kept going, he could hit his stride, and once he did, everything could change very fast.

Maya had finished her second period graphic design class early that day, which she might have put to good use by getting off to the girls’ locker room to change and be ready for swim class early, too, but then it was stronger than her. Second period was when Lucas and Zay had their dance class, and she just had to see. She had been trying to convince Lucas to show her some of his ‘moves,’ but so far, no amount of bribing, puppy dog eyes, or cuddling and kissing had convinced him. Well here now was her chance to turn on ‘spy mode’ and see for herself.

She went up to the class, but, no luck for her that day, they had already finished by the looks of it, and they were all sitting around, listening to their teacher. When the bell rang, she tried to scamper off, only to be called over as Lucas and Zay stepped out into the hall. She thought he was about to bust her, but instead he wanted to introduce her to someone. The girl standing next to him and Zay looked vaguely familiar, as most anyone in the school was bound to after a while, but then she remembered this girl was also in both of her advanced classes, a new transfer this year. She looked oddly giddy for a moment.

It turned out she was – gasp – a big TXNY fan, had been since she’d found their videos over the summer. Sophie, her name was, and she simply couldn’t believe her luck when she’d started her new school and discovered three quarters of her new favorite band came to this school, too, that she even had classes with all of them. She’d been working up the courage to talk to them for the last couple of weeks without success, and then today, in dance class, she had learned Lucas and Zay were dating two of the band members. As it turned out, her birthday was coming up, and she was throwing a party, hoping to break her persona as ‘the new girl.’ She was wondering if Maya and the rest of the band might be available to perform at the party, for which she would pay them of course.

TO BE CONTINUED


	135. Their Approach to a Gig

The walk to the girls’ locker room by the pool had been the stage to chaos inside Maya’s mind as she tried to navigate the giddiness of the offer she’d been given and trying to figure out how best to tell Riley and Nadine. Was she going to tell Riley right away, as they got ready for swimming, or would she wait, as Nadine wasn’t with them? She _would_ see Nadine in the period after that, in pre-calculus, but then she would also see the both of them together right after that, when they all went to lunch. And if she waited until then, she could also call Smackle, so she could tell them all at once. But then Sophie would be in pre-calc with her, too, and maybe she’d want to say something… So, she decided to just tell each of her bandmates when she saw them.

She pulled Riley aside when she showed up to the locker room, the look on her face apparently telegraphing that something big was happening, because Riley instantly asked her if something was wrong. Maya assured her that, no, there was nothing wrong at all, more like something very right. She went about retelling the story of the encounter outside dance class, taking care not to let Riley deviate subject, as she, like any of them, was still very curious at the thought of those two friends of theirs being part of dance class. When she got to the end of it, Riley pulled her into an excited hug as powerful as any Riley Matthews hug could ever get, and Maya laughed. It was a miracle neither of them drowned once they got in the pool, although it could also be said maybe their happiness had kept them afloat.

They parted ways afterward, Riley bound for English, while Maya went scurrying in search of Nadine and found her at her locker. She’d had Riley bind her wet hair into a long braid, never minding the long work of trying to get it dry, the better to get a few extra minutes to talk to Nadine. Here again, her friend and bandmate took in her approach with curiosity. When Maya asked her if she knew Sophie, Nadine told her of course she did. Their pre-calculus teacher had set them up in alphabetical order for the seats in class, which generally sent Nadine straight to the end of the line, only this year they had a new transfer in the form of Sophie Zvolensky, bringing Nadine Zhu to the second to last seat. The two girls had since shared a sort of loose partnership in their status as part of the ‘Z’ club.

“I had no idea she liked the band, but this explains why she was so nervous in the beginning.”

When they got into the class this time, Maya trailed after Nadine as they moved to the end of the last row, finding Sophie already in her seat. The girl looked like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders now that her ‘secret’ love for the band was not a secret anymore, and she went about telling them about which of the songs that she’d heard so far were her favorites. She also said she’d bought one of the albums from the diner, and if the bell hadn’t called them all to attention, Maya suspected their classmate might have worked up the courage to ask if they might sign it.

At lunch, the three local members of the band gathered at a separate table from the rest of their friends, so they might call up Smackle and tell her about the party and their being hired on to play there. Smackle didn’t show any sign of being sad that she wouldn’t get to be a part of it. Instead, her response was to ask them when the party was taking place, and then to tell them she had a new song she’d been tinkering with but would now do her best to finish and send to them as soon as possible, so they could learn it and perform it at the party. Knowing this was Isadora Smackle they were dealing with, they had no doubt she would rise to the challenge.

When they spotted Sophie coming through the cafeteria with her tray, they signaled her over so that she might sit with them and also get to ‘meet’ the fourth, New York based member of TXNY. She was very thrilled for this, knowing beforehand that this was the person responsible for the great majority of the songs’ composition. When they also told her that they would debut a new song, they thought for sure she might burst into tears for how excited she was. She could come off so shy most of the time, and being with them she hadn’t quite found the way to _not_ see them as members of her new favorite band first and classmates second, so that she would laugh nervously and not hold eye contact very long, but they had a feeling that, given time, she would start to relax, and become a friend along with a fan.

The rest of the day went by as wonderfully as any day could after you’d received good news. They tried not to wonder too much just how this gig would go. Sophie was still new, maybe not many people would show up. Of course once they knew the band would be there… Well, maybe they still wouldn’t show up, or maybe more would come… They couldn’t forget this wouldn’t just be about them, this would be her party, and they would do their best to ensure people remembered this, too.

TO BE CONTINUED


	136. Their Approach to Practice

As promised, the new song landed in three inboxes late that night, as Maya, and Riley, and Nadine were all getting ready for bed. It was stronger than all of them, they’d needed to listen to it at once. And what they heard was that, even rushed to finish, Smackle couldn’t put out anything but wonders. If it wasn’t that they had school in the morning, they would have hurried to call one another, to talk and talk, and start to try and figure out how it would all sound. The one thing they had at least allowed themselves to do was to confirm amongst the three of them two things. The first, that they would get together for practice the next afternoon. The second, that they would keep the new song a secret, even from their friends, so they could be surprised like Sophie would.

This had required a certain amount of sneaking around, which in itself had been amusing to the three of them, however in the end they realized they hadn’t been so clever after all, as the others showed up at the theater, where they had been practicing, even as they were about to start work on the new song. So, they put a pin in it, and practiced their other songs, even if they did know them inside and out already. This somehow translated to their friends as the three of them being nervous about the performance. They didn’t say that was it, but they didn’t say it wasn’t either.

“It’ll be fine, you guys were all worried the first show you did without Smackle, but it went great,” Rebecca pointed out. This was true. They’d done one performance, again at Chubbie’s, just the three of them, the week before. At first they had been concerned that people would wonder where their fourth member had gone; the picture at the door still showed all four of them, and it always would, whether Isadora was there with them or not. They had made sure, as had been the plan, to establish this living situation of theirs in their videos, on their pages, so that any and all would know that, while they were a four-girl band, and would continue to be, there would be occasions where only three of them took to the stage. And it seemed to work. The reduced contingent had come to be known as TXNY75, for holding three quarters, 75% of the band.

“How much is Sophie giving you to play at her party?” Dylan asked, probably only the first one to actually come out and ask it, even if all of them had to be wondering it. The three girls looked to one another, a silent debate on what to say.

“Well, she told us what she wanted to give us…” Nadine started. “It was… a lot.”

“Turns out her mom’s kind of rich,” Riley piped in. She’d had little choice in telling them, once she’d told them her address, once the invitations had gone out. They also knew that Sophie’s father had passed when she was only four years old, that her mother had raised her on her own ever since, that it had been just the two of them for almost as long as she could remember. Maya had found herself faced with this story that felt almost like a flipped version of her own life, and it had made her feel that much more for the new girl at their school.

“We told her, as generous as her offer was, we couldn’t take it. So, we settled on half,” Maya went on. “And, no, we’re not telling how much.” Some of the others protested this, now more curious than ever, but the others respected this and let it go.

“It’s all going into the trip fund anyway, we decided,” Nadine added.

It was still far away, but like the whole college question, it was going to be closer and closer with every week that went by. It wasn’t college of course, wasn’t stress and questions and steps, it was excitement and preparation and research… The plan now had sort of become that, in the summer following this school year, they would have to really figure out where they wanted to go, what transport was going to be like, and accommodations, and food, and then that great miscellaneous section holding the unplanned, the unexpected, and… well, the souvenirs…

“See, what you need to do is get TXNY big in Europe, then by the time we go out there, you can have a tour,” Asher would joke, and the girls would laugh, though at the same time the very idea that their little band could break those boundaries was as impossible as it was intriguing. They had never imagined it could get as big as it already had, at the level they were at now, so could they really allow themselves to brush it off as something that could never happen?

“Can we just focus on this party before we start planning out world domination?” Maya pulled them back on track.

So they got back to practice, going through the motions in all earnestness, although by the end of it, when the others went to leave and asked if the three of them wanted to follow, they said they would keep at it just a little while longer, get it that much more perfected for Sophie’s party. Riley followed them out, waiting, waiting…

“Alright, they’re gone,” she ran back down the theater aisle toward the stage.

“Then let’s give this new song a go,” Maya smirked, stepping back up to the microphone, as all three of them pulled out the documents Smackle had sent them the night before.

TO BE CONTINUED


	137. Their Approach to Travel

The next day, after school, Maya had to get home to look after her sisters, and so Lucas drove her there, the better to assist her, because as _his_ mother would put it, ‘having as many arms to care as need caring is always best.’ They’d been about to drive off when he spotted Asher jogging up to the car in the rearview mirror.

“Hey, can I tag along? Babies love me,” he rattled off as he came up to the driver’s side window, which sounded like more of an excuse to go with them as anything else, but they didn’t question it, and so he hopped into the backseat and they were off.

Lucas hadn’t gotten to see much of Asher since the school year had started. They only had history class together, the rest of their schedules diverting into opposite directions. He made up for it outside of class as much as he could, but it still felt like he and his old friend didn’t get to talk as much, and now more than ever it seemed like they should. As it turned out, Asher felt the same. As good as he really was with babies, it wasn’t the reason he came over to Maya’s house that day, only that he had wanted to talk to his friend all day and had never gotten the chance.

“I’ll need to tell them before we go on the trip,” he stated as they sat, each holding one of the twins, while Maya was in the kitchen readying bottles for them.

“So, Ray’s coming with us?” Lucas asked, Gracie Hunter yawning in his arms.

“It’s the plan, right now, but he doesn’t want to make it official just yet,” Asher explained. “He’ll be through his first year of college by then, doesn’t know what things will be like by then, with money, and… Well, there’s school, and his parents are supposed to be paying for part of it, but once they know about him, about us, then he doesn’t know if that’ll still be the case, and if he has to pay his way, then that’ll have to come first, before a trip with friends.”

Lucas hadn’t even realized this was hanging over their heads on top of everything else, and it made his stomach feel like it dropped just a bit for their sake.

“Ray’s coming with us,” he declared right then. “We’ll find a way. Tell him that, tell him he’s coming with us.” Asher looked at him, as much like he had expected him to say that as he was taken by surprise. “All of us deserve to go out there with the people we want with us. We’ve still got a long time. And if Maya and the band keep things up the way they’ve been going, Ray’s trip is as good as paid for.” Asher just had to laugh, which made his shoulders shake and in turn made Nellie Hunter fuss in his arms, until he could get her to calm down again.

“Coming, coming…” Maya returned then, with the two bottles. One handed to each of the boys, they settled into the task and the twins got their milk, as their sister sat on the ground with them. “So… Everyone’s coming to the party, right?”

“Yeah, far as I know,” Asher nodded. “Ray’s coming, too.”

“Good,” she smiled, as did Lucas.

“So how much _is_ Sophie paying you guys?” he asked, making her sigh.

“Hey, we won’t tell, will we?” Asher turned to ask Nellie, staring back at him over the top of her bottle. “She’s not telling,” he reported.

“Well, good, because neither am I,” Maya squinted at him with a smirk. Lucas wondered if she’d let Sophie pay her as much as she’d initially offered if it meant getting Ray one step closer to being all set for the trip, but he would never ask it of her. He actually had so much respect for the decision she and the others had made, it was exactly what he might have seen them doing. He knew she wouldn’t even tell him in confidence, and it actually sat very right with him that she didn’t.

“It’s going to get pretty crowded over there, now they know where she lives, isn’t it?” Asher thought aloud, and Lucas hadn’t really thought about it that way up to then, but he was probably right. People would get curious.

“I asked if she’d considered having the party somewhere else, but she didn’t,” Maya told them. “Don’t think she even realized why it might be an issue.” If she had to imagine Sophie Zvolensky in cartoon shape, she’d be an innocent little bird, unaware that hordes of cats were now circling her cage… She’d get eaten alive if they didn’t look after her. All three of the TXNY75 girls had been in Sophie’s position, been the new girls transferring into a new school, and they wanted her to have the best birthday. “Alright, new plan. Nadine and Riley and me, we’re the entertainment. The rest of you… crowd control, yeah?”

“You just want me to put on the bodyguard shirt,” Lucas gave her a smirk.

“Well, arguably speaking, can you blame me?” Maya turned a virtuous smile toward him.

“Nope,” Asher pitched in at this, and he and Maya had a laugh together, while Lucas looked down at himself for a beat.

“I mean it though. You’ll make sure Sophie doesn’t regret having this party, right?”

“We’ve got you covered,” Lucas promised, and Asher did, too. They still had a few days to go until the party, which wasn’t even _their_ party, and yet it consumed so much of their lives right then that it might as well have been.

TO BE CONTINUED


	138. Their Approach to Outfits

By Thursday afternoon, it seemed the entire school was abuzz with the party that was to take place on Saturday at Sophie’s house. The hostess in question looked like both excitement and apprehension were fighting for dominance in her mind, though she tried her best to let excitement be the one that showed on her face as she went around and people generally approached her to look in her direction. Lucas had already implemented the direction Maya had given him however, and he and the others were showing themselves as support to the new girl, who would notice the efforts with immense gratitude.

The trio, who was set to perform at said party, was busy on their end with preparations, though it didn’t mean they stood apart from the shielding efforts of their friends. They had gotten the new song good and prepped, and continued to do so as they gathered, in person or over Skype, whenever they could, because never would it be said that any of them didn’t take their band seriously.

Now, with just a couple of days to go before the party, the next item on their list was no doubt the easiest and one of the most entertaining for them, and it was deciding what they would wear and their overall look. For having done any number of performances, and videos, and photo shoots together since the summer, and commonly making each other’s rooms like their own in the last few years, they were familiar enough with each other’s clothing options, though if all else failed, they could trade and swap amongst themselves.

Either way, both Maya and Nadine had made a stopover at their houses to scoop up a few items, and then they gathered at Riley’s for this ‘meeting,’ the three of them along with Rebecca, and of course Smackle over the computer screen. It might have been that, between Smackle’s loudly calling out suggestions (in case they didn’t hear her), and Rebecca’s acting like a photographer on a red carpet, and Riley’s mother dropping in every so often to give her own thoughts on whatever look they were presently exploring, that the general chaos of the moment would have overwhelmed them. It did, a bit, but not so much that they didn’t stay on top of things. By now, the chaos was a good, familiar place for them to be.

There was a heap of clothes on Riley’s bed now, mixed of the combined offerings made by the trio thus far, but at last, at last, it seemed they had sorted the clothing situation, and from there, figuring out the hair would be a breeze.

“Can’t wait to see the look on Sophie’s face when she hears the new song,” Riley breathed, letting herself fall back over the mountain of clothes on her bed but not five seconds later rolling aside with a squeak when she saw Maya take a dive to join her. Nadine and Rebecca chuckled at this, presently looking through the pictures Rebecca had taken with her phone throughout the various changes they’d undergone in the last hour.

“You know, these pictures could be worth something someday,” she joked to the three of them and the screen, as Nadine brought the phone over to show Maya and Riley a particularly funny one. They laughed, looking at what they had called ‘classic rock star poses.’

“Think we’ll last long enough for that to happen?” Maya asked. It was a reasonable question, but somehow in all the excitement over the party it took them back to some plane of reality, where they had to wonder what the future would hold for the four of them as far as their band. It might have been easier to look at the entire thing as a moment in time of their adolescence, if not for the traction they had engaged over the summer. Now it felt more like they owed this progress the possibility of growing even more. Of course, if they committed to that, well… it suggested that many a carefully considered plan for their future might be for nothing, if they ended up taking this other route.

“Maybe what we need to ask ourselves isn’t if it’ll happen but whether we want it to,” Smackle offered, calling their attention to the screen. “We can’t see the future. All we can do is influence it in what way we can and see what happens.” There was little they could say to express this any better.

“I say,” Maya sat up to offer her own piece, “So long as we want to keep going, so long as we can, then we should. If we get to a point where we want or need to stop, then we stop.” The rest of them agreed with nods.

“Then we give it all we’ve got,” Nadine declared. “Within reason, I mean we’ve still got school for the next several years, and we’re not giving that up, at least I’m not.” Again, agreement reigned.

“And years from now, we can have our golden reunion tour,” Riley announced with a flourish, to the cheers and laughter of the others.

The anticipation for the party and their performance was right at that fever pitch where they knew that getting through the next day’s classes would involve a lot of self-focusing if they had any expectations of recalling any part of what they’d be taught. It would also be Sophie’s actual birthday, and being the full-service entertainment that they were, they were not about to let the occasion go by unnoticed…

TO BE CONTINUED


	139. Their Approach to School

Friday morning, as instructed the night before, Lucas picked Maya and Riley up earlier than usual, and they went on an errand. It was not ideal to have to find things at this hour, with very few stores open, but they came away from it with a satisfying loot and continued on to school. First period French allowed them to go on with their plan for lunch time before being scattered off in separate directions and separate classes. If nothing else, thinking about this little plan was doing wonders in keeping them focused on the day’s classes instead of losing themselves in the excitement of the following day’s party.

Maya was to set things in motion along with Nadine, as pre-calculus ended and they were set to head off to the cafeteria. She hurried to her bandmate’s desk as everyone was picking up their things to leave the classroom, the two of them now standing before the girl of the hour. They had already wished her a happy birthday as they’d come into the class, of course, and when the girl looked up to find them both staring back at her, she seemed to go off and imagine the worst.

“Oh, you guys can’t do the party anymore?” she asked. “I understand, I mean…”

“What? No, of course we’re doing it, are you kidding? We’ve been waiting on it all week,” Nadine reassured her, and the girl took a breath, relieved.

“Couldn’t keep us away,” Maya chimed in, and Sophie smiled. “But that’s tomorrow, and today… today is your birthday, Miss Zvolensky. So, I think, _we_ think, something needs to be done about that. Don’t you agree, Nadine?” she turned to her friend.

“I agree very much, Maya,” Nadine matched her tone and smile.

“Alright then, let’s go,” Maya nodded, as the two of them led the birthday girl out of the classroom, stood on either side of her.

“Where are we going?” Sophie asked, as confused as she was intrigued, being led off by these new idols/friends.

“Well, it’s lunch time, and we’re in school, so where else would we go?” Nadine smiled, as they turned down the hall toward the cafeteria.

If the rest of the group had done its part – which Maya and Nadine would trust they did – everything would be set before their arrival. They walked in, immediately called over by Zay, and Dylan, and Lucas, and Riley, all of them, sitting and standing around the table where they had set up the decorations, and the lunch, and the cake. Said cake had come plain, only to be decorated – a miracle of steadiness in a moving car – by Maya and an assortment of sprinkles and toppers and gel icing. She had taken her cue from what they knew of her, how she’d grown up in California, loved dancing, and going to the beach, and swimming, and animals…

When Sophie saw all of them, everything on the table, they thought for sure she’d start to cry from happiness. When she saw the cake, her eyes legitimately started to well up, and her two escorts both side-hugged her as one, wishing her a happy birthday again before leading her to take a seat with them. They tried not to make it into anything more than friends celebrating another friend, not wanting the odd backlash they’d been sensing brew over and ruin this moment for Sophie.

“You know what, next video we make, you should be in it,” Riley suggested aloud, making the girl’s eyes go wide.

“Yeah, from what these two have been saying, you’re like the best one in their dance class,” Asher went on, nodding to Lucas and Zay.

“Even better than me,” Zay admitted, which seemed like a big thing for him to do.

“Thank you, I… I don’t know what to say…” Sophie replied with a blush creeping up her cheeks.

“Say yes,” Maya whispered, sitting at her side.

“Yes,” Sophie laughed.

“See, that was easy,” Nadine bumped her shoulder from the other side.

“Do _we_ get to be in the video?” Zay asked his girlfriend.

“We’ll schedule auditions,” she informed him with a smirk, knowing it would trip him up.

The whole lunch period was sort of cheerful and wonderful, and it made them all glad of the opportunity to get to know their new classmate more. Somehow it all ended up winding back to the fated question for a bit, asking her if she knew what she wanted to do after high school. True to what they knew of her, she declared she either wanted to be a dancer full time or become a marine biologist… or both. As much as she was enjoying living in Texas, she also felt she wanted to go back to California when she got the chance. They had moved here because of her mother’s work, which Sophie had dealt with smoothly enough, although it meant being separated from those few close friends she had back there for these last two years of high school.

All three of TXNY75 around the table told her about their own moves, and school transfers, each coming at a different time, from Nadine in 5th grade, to Maya in 7th, and Riley in 8th… And they told her how it was all these people around the table who’d made being here much more than a new school. It made it feel like finding home again. And they would happily be that for her as well.

The rest of the day went by in cheer and sugar-fueled merriment after the cake. By the end of the day, knowing how very little time separated them from Sophie’s party, there was nothing to really do but get on with it. One more practice and then… showtime.

TO BE CONTINUED


	140. Their Approach to Departure

On Saturday morning, Maya stopped and asked herself if she and the rest of the band should keep the outfits they’d chosen for the actual performance and wear something else for the party itself. It was silly, maybe, but then she couldn’t help but think about wanting the two things to feel like separate things, like, yes, they had been hired on to play at the party, but also they were growing to see Sophie as a friend, as she saw them in the same way, so they might have wanted to be able to be there in that capacity as much as the rest. She immediately texted Riley and Nadine, and they agreed, sending her immediately diving back to hunt through her closet.

“Maya? You up?” her mother’s voice sounded from the top of the stairs after a while.

“Yeah!” she called back, frowning as she looked from one dress to another before craning her neck to look at the clock.

“So, you’re joining us for breakfast at some point?” Katy asked, coming down the stairs, and when Maya emerged again with her head through the gap between the dress straps and its hanger, the garment dangling in front of her, she saw her mother stood there with Nellie in her arms.

“At some point,” Maya confirmed, pulling the hanger back over her head and leaving the selected dress on her bed before holding out her hands so she might carry her little sister back up the stairs. “Hey, sunny girl,” she cooed, kissing the little one who brightened at once at the sight of her.

So up they went, joining Shawn and little Gracie for breakfast, and Maya was famished, which tracked with every other show day morning she’d gone through. There were plenty of things in her life these days to make her feel excitement overflowing, but each one was special in its own way. The band’s brand of excitement was in the thrill of it all, of getting up on stage and feeling the energy, the music, the people, all of it coming together… How could she not be primed for it?

After breakfast, knowing she had to get to the diner for a shift before the party, and how she would likely have zero desire to even touch a textbook the next day, she hunkered down and set herself to her homework, closing out the world until it was all done. She finished just in time to speed off to work, and any of the patrons who would be served by her that day could be confident in that their waitress would greet them with great, bold energy and a mega smile. Asher’s uncle would also find many a task dealt with in his diner, fueled by the hyperactive duo of Maya and Nadine, neither of them willing to let any down time spoil their streak.

And then just as soon as she could clock out, Maya was headed back home, so she might jump in the shower, washing off the scent of diner food from her, and then starting to get ready for the party. Her show outfit was set neatly in a bag, there with her guitar, and the selected dress was slipped on once her long hair had been dried and wrangled into a great bun atop her head. When she was completely ready, makeup, accessories, all of it, she brought her things upstairs, leaving them by the door before coming to a stop and just… breathing… There, now all she had to do was wait for her ride to the party.

“So, excited about this party?” her father called to her with that smirk on his face that made her squint at him, knowing he was teasing her.

When Lucas arrived, she was in the nursery, staring pensively up at the ceiling. She looked down when she heard him walk in, and she had to smile, catching the tail end of his reaction at the sight of her. If he never stopped being just a little stunned every time, she would be just fine with it. She was by no means immune to this herself.

“What were you doing?” he asked, coming up to kiss her hello.

“Well, you know how I get when an idea gets in my head, yeah?”

“Little bit,” he smiled. She looked back up at the ceiling.

“I keep thinking I want to put something up there that they can look at. _Then_ I think about what happens if whatever I put there ends up distracting them, or scaring them…” He made a noise of ‘how could that ever happen?’ “Oh, you weren’t here for the whole… hippo debacle,” she waved her hand dismissively in the air.

“The what?” Now he had to know.

“My mother went out the other day, for light bulbs. And she came back with a couple new baby toys, because ‘they were just so cute!’” she imitated her mother’s ‘I’m sorry, I just had to’ voice, as though she didn’t have a voice like that herself. “One of them was a little plush hippopotamus, and she was right, it _is_ really cute. Gracie sure thought so.”

“And Nellie?” he asked, starting to guess for himself.

“Screeched her head off,” Maya whispered, as though the sleeping baby in the crib next to her would somehow wake and debate her humiliation. “Figured she’d get over it, but nope. Any time she even sees the thing, she loses it. But then _Gracie_ will cry if you put Hortensia away. That’s her name,” she added, seeing the puzzled look on his face. “Hortensia Hippo. So now no one knows what to do, if we let Gracie have it, Nellie flips, but if we take it away… They’d probably both forget about it if we just took it away, but then is it fair to Gracie, and so… debacle, and…” she pointed back to the ceiling. She wasn’t going to end up causing something like that again.

“Right…” Lucas slowly nodded.

“Just came in here to keep me occupied until you showed up,” she shrugged before looking back down to her sisters, at either side of her, seeing they both still slept. She still took the time to crouch and pass a kiss from her fingertip to each of their round little cheeks and whisper them farewells until her return.

Lucas took up the bag and the guitar case while Maya went and spoke with her parents, confirming she would be home on time, and that there would be videos of the performance, because they were always eager to see those. Finally, they got in the car and took off. They didn’t actually need to pick up anyone else for once, which was good, because they had one pitstop to make before heading to Sophie’s house. In all the haste of the week, preparing for the party, she hadn’t had time to go and select a gift for the birthday girl. It might have been said that the performance was her gift, but then Sophie (or Sophie’s mother, she wasn’t sure exactly) _was_ paying for that performance, so it couldn’t count, could it? And it had taken a while for her to figure out what she might get her, but she’d found it in the end. She could have drawn or painted her something, but it _had_ been short notice, and with everything else she had to do, it would have been too rushed, and she couldn’t do that.

It was a quick dash into one store for the gift, and into another for wrapping paper and bows and ribbons and all, and then off to some space where she might wrap the present, but finally she had the colorfully sparkling thing ready to go and it was back to the car and off to Sophie’s house.

“Lived in this city four years and I don’t think I’ve ever been around here,” Maya stated, looking out the window as they drove on.

“Been here way more than four years and I think it’s the second or third time,” Lucas pointed out.

“I suddenly feel just a little underdressed,” she couldn’t keep her eyes from being a bit wide, and she realized after a moment that she’d made herself sit very straight in her seat as they went on, like someone would shout at her for having bad posture in their neighborhood.

“You could never be,” he assured her, and she smirked, turning her head back to him. Leave it to him to never let her feel bad about anything. “I think that’s the house over there,” he nodded up, and she looked over. There really was no missing it. If the decorations didn’t confirm it, the throngs of people already there would have done it. “Did the whole school show up?”

“Are you sure that’s just _our_ school,” she countered the estimate.

“Welcome to the first TXNY stadium concert…”

TO BE CONTINUED


	141. Her Night of Wonder

_After…_

The first night Shawn had been part of the waiting up for Maya’s return routine, Katy had somehow managed to reassure him that their girl would be on time in a very odd, misleading sort of way. She had told him about her old habits, back in New York, sneaking about. She told him how she used to tell herself her daughter’s adolescence would be a nightmare for that reason, but that it had all turned out to be the opposite. In the years since they’d moved to Austin, Maya had evolved into the girl she was now, and that girl hardly ever gave her mother reason to worry. And even if she was a few minutes late, it would only be that.

The night of Sophie’s party, Maya _was_ late, and not just by a few minutes. An hour had come and gone since her curfew, and still no sign of her. No texts, no calls, nothing. Shawn had called the Matthews house, only to be told that Riley had arrived a little over an hour ago. He called the Friar house next, and, much as it would kind of made sense, if Maya wasn’t _here_ , he could barely conceal his concern as he discovered Lucas had also not gotten home yet. After hanging up, he’d looked over to Katy, sitting on the couch and staring back at him.

“Alright, I’m going to drive around, see if I can find his car any…”

When the phone rang, Katy picked it up at once, her face relaxing just a hair. Crisis averted. But it wasn’t her daughter’s voice on the line. It was an emergency room nurse.

X

_Before…_

Sophie’s house, much as they’d tried not to focus on it, had been on their mind ever since its location had been discovered. Maya had a solid feeling that every last one of them had imagined it in some shape or form throughout the week. Whatever they had pictured, nothing could have prepared them for the reality of it. The place was just massive, impressive, already from the outside. Just walking up the path toward the door, it felt like they were stepping into another world, and then once they _did_ get through the door…

“Huckleberry, I don’t think we’re in Texas anymore…” Maya blinked, looking around. Lucas looked just as speechless, taking in the room. ‘Opulence’ seemed like the only word they could come up with. Maybe for that reason, the party itself was taking place behind the house, not inside. The only reason the two of them were allowed through the door was through Sophie’s permission, which had been equally granted to the rest of the band and their friends and no one else.

“How many people are here?” Lucas asked as Sophie walked them through.

“I stopped counting after fifty, and I think it’s almost three times that now,” the girl reported, looking more nervous than excited. “My mother insisted on hiring security when she heard how many people were coming. They’re leading everyone out into the yards.”

‘Yards’ felt entirely insufficient to what lay behind this house. Maya didn’t doubt for a second that Sophie’s estimation was correct on the number of kids who’d so far shown up, and more were still arriving… and there was still space for more, not to mention the presence of the stage erected at the back. This was putting the ‘stage’ at the Babineaux summer parties to shame. There was already music filling the space, some of the kids already hopping and dancing around. Maya could see Riley and Nadine were already out there, along with some of the others, setting up their instruments. Before long, their songs would be echoing throughout the neighborhood, by the look of the sound system.

“Are you sure it’s just the two of you living out here?” Maya looked back to Sophie, who blushed meekly before nodding.

They exited out into the ‘yards,’ weaving their way through until they could climb on to the stage. Dylan was standing near the front of it, his phone stretched out before himself, back to the crowd, so that he could capture the vast numbers of people milling about. Rebecca was checking the sound, Joey and Zay were on the lights, Asher was helping Nadine set up, and Scott helped Riley.

“Where’s Ray?” Lucas asked.

“Fixing the banner back in the house, one of the cords broke off,” Asher informed him.

“Banner?” Maya asked.

“I had it made, to put in front of the stage,” Sophie explained with a smile, just as Ray came jogging up, the banner in question carried carefully. He nodded to Lucas, who came forward to help him, taking one end of the banner so they could deploy it out in front of the stage and tie it back in place. Sophie had done well, and Maya couldn’t deny it made her heart do another small jump. How was this her life? “You guys can leave everything here, get out there,” Sophie went on, indicating that her mother’s security included two tall guys watching over the stage.

“Yeah… yeah, okay…” Would anyone think any less of her if she burst out laughing at the fact that this _was_ her life right now?

So, out went the small group, finding classmates and teammates at every turn. Sophie was never far behind. She stuck near them, and Maya felt for her, understanding that they were the first real friends she had in Austin, and she had never expected for this kind of turnout. If they played their cards right, this would be a night to remember, and Sophie Zvolensky would find her place among her new schoolmates.

TO BE CONTINUED


	142. Her Night of Hype

_After…_

It had been a long time since their son had done anything to keep them on edge. That scrape which had cost him a year held back at school felt like something out of a previous life, if that at all. Tom & Melinda Friar could say their son had grown into just the young man they had always envisioned him to be. And if they could pinpoint anything as the motivator behind that shift, focusing the traits that had always been a part of him, well they didn’t need to look any further than the New York girl who’d come into his life the year following his suspension.

But tonight… Tonight he was late. He should have been here an hour ago, even after having driven Maya home. The first twenty, thirty minutes, they had been ready to write this delay off to their enjoying themselves at that birthday party. He had earned that leniency, hadn’t he?

Except when twenty, thirty, turned into fifty-five, sixty-five… And then Shawn Hunter, Maya’s stepfather, had called them, asking if they had heard from either of the kids. Melinda had told him that they hadn’t, and the two parents had ended the call with the promise that either of them would call the other back if they did hear something.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang again, which Melinda took to mean Lucas had just dropped Maya off at her house and her parents were calling to let them know their son was on his way home now.

It wasn’t Katy Hart, or Shawn Hunter. It was a nurse, calling from the emergency room, informing Mrs. Friar that her son had been involved in an accident.

X

_Before…_

They’d waited until the sun had started to go down before switching gears, moving to prepare for the show. Maya, Riley, and Nadine had followed Sophie back into the house, where she had led them upstairs so they might change in peace. Three separate guest rooms had been offered out to be their dressing rooms, though in the end they’d all just piled into the one room and pulled their bags open, while Sophie waited out in the hall.

This was not their first show, nor was it the first time they’d changed from ‘street clothes’ to ‘stage looks’ together. Usually though it turned into something like a tornado, clothes flying off and on in a great gust of wind, those discarded landing wherever the floor found them first. Hair would be fixed either on their own, pacing back and forth, or one standing behind the other, calling for brush or pin or elastic band. Makeup, going on or coming off, happened quick enough, everyone piled in around the same mirror.

When they started to change, in Sophie’s guest room, it felt like everyone’s manners had been turned around. It felt like not one of them would dare make any kind of a mess. Their party clothes were folded even as they were removed, placed inside the bags they’d emptied on to the large bed. The stage outfits they’d selected a few days before were slipped on, allowing each one of them to start and feel the pre-show mood to settle in.

“Nadine, can you?” Maya pointed to her hair.

“Sit,” her friend pointed to the seat in front of a vanity in the corner, and Maya took a seat. Nadine undid the bun, letting the long blond hair tumble down before starting to brush it out and do it up as they’d decided back in Riley’s room.

“I’m still not sure this isn’t a museum… or a hotel…” Riley whispered, standing next to Nadine with the box of pins and bands.

“That stage though,” Nadine whispered, too, and Maya would have laughed, except for two things, the first being that she felt like low voices were the right thing, too, and the second being that, if she moved too much, Nadine might mess up the elaborate braid she was working on.

“People were still showing up when we came back in here,” she whispered. There really was no way of knowing how many people were there, though she imagined the security people would know. _There are security people…_ she thought to herself, still amazed by this.

The braid was completed, as were all other hair and makeup endeavors, and they broke their whisper rule in order to warm up. When they were all set, there was not one stain left, not one thing out of place. By the time they had been able to exit the room with their bags in hand, they were proud to say it looked as pristine as it had done when they’d walked in. Sophie looked up when the door opened, and she looked so giddy now that they had to smile.

“I-I should go and announce you guys, right?” she asked, standing up.

“Don’t worry about that,” Maya told her, leading her back toward the stairs. “This is your party. All you need to do now is stand right up front with the others, and enjoy the show, got it?”

“Got it,” Sophie beamed.

They sent her out to take her place, the trio staying just inside the back door for a moment, as Maya took out her phone and dialed in Smackle. Even though she couldn’t be with them in person, it had never stopped them from holding up the ‘routine,’ they had established for pre-show ‘hyping up.’ They stood in a huddle, the phone held in the open fourth space, and they could see Smackle bowing her head as though standing in that huddle. She might have considered it silly, if not that she accepted the ritual of performance energy. Though no one outside could hear them, they called out their repeating chant of ‘TXNY!’, four times, getting louder every time.

“Alright, let’s go!” Maya declared, and her band mates cheered. It was show time.

TO BE CONTINUED


	143. Her Night of Music

_After…_

Nellie and Gracie Hunter had been put into the care of a very confused Mrs. Talbot, the next door neighbor having been on the verge of turning in for the night when a frantic Katy Hart had shown up on her doorstep, asking that the old woman come over and keep an eye on the twins, because the two parents needed to get to the hospital.

For this brief delay, by the time Maya’s parents parked the car and hurried into the emergency room in search of their daughter, Mr. & Mrs. Friar had already arrived, though no more than thirty seconds ahead of them. When Melinda Friar saw them, she hurried to embrace Katy.

“We only just got here, we haven’t heard anything,” she told her in a trembling voice, and Katy could only nod, while Shawn joined Tom Friar at the desk, trying to flag down someone, anyone, who could tell them where their kids were and what had happened to them.

X

_Before…_

It would have felt just a tiny bit awkward for them to cut through the crowd to get to the stage now that they’d changed, but then Sophie had informed them of a path they might take to sneak around, so that was how they’d gone. The fact that there even was that option for them was bordering equal parts on comical and thrilling. They’d marched out there, the three of them side by side, sort of half dancing/sneaking their way up, and looking back on the night, they would all of them look on this small moment as being on equal footing with the whole of the performance they were about to give.

They had done shows a few times now, they were getting more confident each time, but this one was so different. This was a very vast collection of their classmates all in one place, not all of them having necessarily come along for the express purpose of watching them perform. They couldn’t help but wonder how many of them would show any overt dislike. They could call themselves confident all they wanted, there were still some things able to shake them. They had never performed for so many people at the same time, so having them be people they could cross in school hallways day after day…

“This is going to be our best one yet,” Maya vowed, before they could come into view, like an incantation, enveloping in its magic. Nadine gave a firm nod. Riley took a deep breath, then nodded energetically.

Rebecca had been waiting for her moment to take up the microphone, and when Maya caught her attention, she grinned and faced the crowd.

“Alright, are you guys ready for a show?” she called in a loud, rousing voice. Whether or not they actually were, the audience gave a roar of approval. “Then, in honor of our birthday girl,” she went on, tipping her hand toward Sophie in the front of the crowd, surrounded by Lucas, Zay, Dylan, Asher, Joey, Scott, and Ray, “I present to you, Maya Hart, Riley Matthews, and Nadine Zhu, it’s TXNY75, let’s get this started!” Rebecca fixed the microphone back in its stand as she shouted this out, and to the sound of the crowd she hopped off the stage and joined their friends, while the trio emerged and took to the stage, riding the cheer that still held as they began playing their first song.

They’d thought long and hard about the sequence of songs they would be performing that night. They wanted to keep things upbeat for a while, with some variety woven in of course. They threw in some covers, and some slower songs after those, and then, for the closer, they broke out the new song. Before they started it, Maya looked back to her bandmates, sharing a smile with them. It wasn’t over just yet, but maybe the vow had really carried some magic in it. This _had_ been the best one yet. And now Maya turned back to the audience.

“This last song goes out to Miss Sophie Zvolensky,” she spoke into the microphone, gesturing to the girl at the head of the crowd. Throughout the show, Maya had just seen her, standing there, dancing in place, singing along, word for word, every time. She was having such a good time, and it was thanks to them, and that… that was her favorite memory of the entire night. So when the music kicked up and she saw the curiosity break over her face, realizing she didn’t know this one, Maya just grinned, giving her a wink before launching into the lyrics as penned by their Isadora in New York. The boys had been tasked with chronicling the night, some of them filming the performance, others including sweeping shots of the crowd, too. Asher had made sure to include some shots of Sophie’s reactions all through it, too, and to see how she lit up, realizing this was something new from the band… it was the cherry on top.

There had been a call for encores. This was not a new one for them, and they didn’t shy away from it. There were plenty of songs they would do, just for the fun of it, then there were some of their songs they would do in other ways, sped up or slowed down… They were running on the energy of the crowd by the end, but eventually it did end, and Maya would have loved nothing more than to be able to contain the feeling in her heart and her mind as they stood up there, Riley and Nadine and her, arm in arm, bowing to their audience.

TO BE CONTINUED


	144. Her Night of Thrills

_After…_

When they’d been guided to where she was being tended to, Katy and Shawn were already for the most part reassured. All in all, Maya had been lucky. She’d already been checked out, and though they would run more tests just to be on the safe side, her injuries would heal, nothing permanent. Even knowing this, when even anything like the time she’d tripped coming up the steps that one night had caused them a small twinge…. The nurse’s words didn’t prepare them any better for what they saw.

She was sat up on a gurney as someone applied a plaster cast to her arm, staring into nothing like she was still just a bit shell-shocked. There was also a bandage on her forehead, the cleanly whiteness of it standing in contrast to the traces of blood still visible on the skin above it and into her hair, and on the sleeve of her shirt, which had been slit open in order to see to her arm.

“Baby girl…” Katy breathed, and when Maya’s eyes turned up and found her parents there, the relief was as instantaneous as the snap of a finger. It brought tears to her eyes, and in no time, they were on the other side of the gurney, Katy’s hands grasping her good hand, Shawn’s coming to rest at her shoulder. They were here… it would be alright.

X

_Before…_

They laid side by side by side on the large bed back in the guest room/changing room, the three of them as spent as they felt more alive than ever. They had come in here to switch back to their previous outfits, but then the moment she’d seen the bed, Riley had marched herself over to it and plopped down in the middle of it, face down, letting out a sigh of release before turning on to her back.

“This is so a hotel bed…” she breathed, just as Maya and Nadine shared a look, a nod, and moved to lay down on either side of her. Two more happy sighs later, here they were.

“We can’t stay here too long, we’ll fall asleep,” Nadine pointed out.

“And that would be bad, yeah?” Maya joked. The other two each made a small noise that came off sounding like ‘I guess.’ They all laughed.

“I can’t fall asleep right now, I’m starving,” Riley declared.

“Starving… thirsty…” Maya mock-coughed. “All that singing, it’s like sand paper in here,” she pointed up to her throat. “One more minute, and then we get changed, deal?”

“Yeah, fine…” Nadine sighed.

“Two minutes?” Riley asked.

After they’d managed to pry themselves off the very comfortable bed, which they’d managed only once Maya suggested they might someday be invited for a sleepover here and be able to spend an entire night in one of these beds, they went about changing back into their party clothes. The intricate braid had been carefully pulled apart, leaving Maya’s hair in strong curls she decided to leave loose down her back rather than to bun up again just yet.

They could have just come up here on their own, but they’d asked Sophie to come with them again, even if it meant having her wait out in the hall for a few minutes. She was still babbling a mile a minute about the show as they’d gone up the stairs, she hadn’t minded at all. Their reason for bringing her along was now to be revealed, as each of the girls pulled wrapped presents from within their clothing bags. Sophie, already overflowing with joy from the show, was now beside herself at this reveal, looking around the hall for a second like she was only now remembering they were in her house.

“Over here,” she led them back into her room. They’d yet to see it, and when they did see it, all they could say was that it very much resembled their new friend. It was bubbly, colorful, but somehow also managed to show her awkward shyness.

They sat together, the three packages placed in front of their recipient. She unwrapped each one in turn, with the meticulous care they would have expected from her before ever even seeing it. Each unwrapped gift was met with surprise, and deep gratitude, and, when all thanks had been said, there was just the shining promise of happy tears at the edge of the girl’s eyes, like she’d never been so happy. At seeing this, Maya leaned forward to wrap her arms around her, as Riley and Nadine piled on, sending the birthday girl into giggles.

“You know, we could just stay in here and they wouldn’t miss us,” Nadine suggested with a conspiratorial smirk as they pulled away.

“I don’t know, _some_ people might,” Riley pointed out, her innocent look coming off a bit too ‘Scott Shelby’ shaped to really be called that.

“Right the boyfriends and boy friends,” Maya gave her a squint of ‘I’m on to you.’ “Fine,” she sighed dramatically. “If we must… But we need something to eat first, and water… so much water right now…”

Down they went, the four of them making their way back from Sophie’s room and stopping in a kitchen that just felt like it belonged in some four-star restaurant or some cooking show set. Food and drink were provided and consumed like they hadn’t seen anything edible in days, before they were summoned back out to the party by a text from Zay to Nadine, who laughed when she read it before showing it to the others.

_Come on, little Z, sweet moves are being wasted without you girls!_

“Well, we can’t have that!” Maya sprang from her seat. She definitely needed to see that Huckleberry boyfriend of hers dance…

TO BE CONTINUED


	145. Her Night of Dance

_After…_

One look at Melinda Friar was usually enough for anyone to know the woman would not be kept waiting longer than she had to, although in the setting of a busy emergency room, her powers were somewhat diminished. Even so, finally, she and her husband had been taken to find their son. All they’d been able to find out so far was that they didn’t believe him to be in any danger, though they were still looking him over, making sure they didn’t miss anything.

He just looked so distraught when they found him, and he didn’t realize they had arrived at first. His arm was in a sling, later to be explained as a dislocated shoulder which had been reset. They would also see he had broken three of the fingers on that hand. None of it seemed to bother him though. His eyes were sort of searching without really seeing, and to know the event had traumatized him so, all the fight had left his mother as she and his father came up to him.

“Lucas, it’s us, hey… It’s alright, son,” Tom Friar spoke to the boy, who blinked and turned to him.

“Where… Where is she? Where’s Maya? Is she okay? They won’t tell me…” he told his father, his voice so pleading, so reduced, he sounded like a small boy all over again.

“She’s not far,” his mother promised him, the strength in her voice clearly all an act, for his sake, and yet it did its job, because he looked back at her and he trusted her. “She’ll be fine, and so will you. Take it easy, just get some rest,” Melinda told him, brushing at his hair with a hand that fought against every tremor.

“Rest…” he repeated, though his eyes continued to search. They might never stop, not until he saw with those eyes that she was really okay.

X

_Before…_

It didn’t take long for them to notice how the crowd seemed to have thinned a bit between the end of the show and now. Had some of the guests only come for the show? It almost felt like wishing too much to even think it, but there was no way to think otherwise, was there? For her part, Maya sort of didn’t mind there being less people around now. After the exertion of the performance, all she wanted right now was to hang out with her friends, and dance with Lucas. Would anyone mind if she spent the rest of their time at the party with her head to his shoulder and his arms around her?

“Where were you guys?” Zay greeted their return with arms held out.

“Hey, girls gotta eat,” Nadine pointed at him. “Especially girls who just sang and played their butts off for all you guys.”

“Fair, fair,” he bowed his head before holding his hand out to her. The speakers were now once again playing the songs as they’d been before the show, and the two of them went off dancing.

“You held out on us with that new song,” was Lucas’ greeting as Maya rejoined him, closing her arms around his waist and looking up at him with an exhausted happy smile.

“We’re sneaky that way,” she shrugged. And he nodded a ‘yeah, sure,’ making her laugh, burying her face in his shirt before looking back up at him. “Now, I was promised some sweet moves by your buddy over there,” she told him, nodding over to Zay and Nadine. “Are you going to hold out on me or are you going to show me what you’ve got, Friar?”

“Oh, now it’s serious if you’re calling me Friar,” he ‘gasped.’

“Dance. Now,” she commanded. He gave his shoulders an exaggerated shimmy, and she lost it, laughing as he went on in giving her some more of those over large dance moves. Before long she was matching him, goofiness for goofiness, and she forgot she had ever been tired.

After one song ended, the next started, catching Maya’s ear and making it impossible for her not to shed the silly dancing and commit to the beat and the rhythm. And as she course-corrected her moves, so did he. What was for certain to her after that night was that he was a lot better than he gave himself credit for. Since the start of the year, every time she’d asked him how dance class had gone, he had only ever shrugged and said ‘fine,’ and that was a gross understatement where she was concerned.

“Maybe we need to put you in the videos, too,” she told him, when a slower song left them to some soothing swaying, his arms around her waist, hers around his neck. His face scrunched up, showing his disbelief in his own talents. “We’ll put a mask on your head if you need it. _I’ll_ know it’s you.”

“Maaaybe,” he stretched out the word, and she cranked on a bright smile before stretching up to kiss him. They’d waited all week for this night, been so giddy for it, and standing here, in Sophie Zvolensky’s massive backyard, dancing with Lucas, she would think to herself how, had they known just how great of a night it would be, they would have been that much more anxious for Saturday to come.

The dancing soon degenerated from pairs and trios within their group to all twelve of them – Sophie being the twelfth, of course – hopping and dancing with what wild abandon they had left in them. Their giddy host, under the calls of her new friends, displayed some of the dancing which had earned her the promise of a future feature in TXNY’s videos, much to the group’s cheers. They’d all be zombies in the morning, and none of it mattered. They were alive for this night.

TO BE CONTINUED


	146. Her Night of Ups & Downs

_After…_

Both Maya and Lucas had been sent off for more tests, leaving the four parents to retreat to the waiting room. When they got there, they discovered that the word had somehow gotten around. Sitting there like a pack of fretting animals were all of the injured pair’s friends, along with Cory and Topanga. To see them there, so worried for their son and daughter, the Friars and the Hunter-Harts took comfort in their presence, allowing at least a portion of the fears they’d been hiding away in the presence of their injured kids to return to the surface. They would be fine, they were secure enough in that to tell the others as much, but at the same time… They were still running tests. ‘Just in case,’ they said, but what if those tests revealed things weren’t as fine as they appeared?

The other thing that continued to hang over their heads, unanswered, was the accident itself. They didn’t know how it had happened, what had caused it. As far as they knew, there were no other injured beyond the two of them, so they had neither hit nor been hit by another car. The parents questioned the pack of teenagers sitting vigil for their friends, asking how they’d been when they’d left the party, but none of them knew what to say.

X

_Before…_

When they’d danced all that they could dance, they had made their way to sit in some of the seats Sophie had laid out on the outer edges of the yards, along the fences which had created the band’s ‘sneaky corridor.’ The guys had managed to pull twelve of those seats into a circle, and now the danced-out dozen sat there, nursing tired feet, and smoothies from the smoothie bar set up in one corner and operated by a trio Maya swore worked at the smoothie place at the mall. The surprises just didn’t stop.

“Here I thought Asher was the connections king,” Dylan teased, after a long pull from his straw that would have stuck anyone else with a massive brain freeze but only gave him a quick little shudder before he carried on.

“Hey, give me more money, you’ll see I still wear the crown,” he vowed, holding up his glass. Sophie laughed at this, and Maya hoped she wasn’t hearing something that sounded like the giggles of a nascent crush. She would not look forward to having to burst any bubbles. With any luck, it would only be the laughter of contented exhaustion and all-around happiness.

They sat there for a while after that, no talking, just relaxing, though with the way some of them were sunk into their seats, it probably wouldn’t be long before they tapped out and headed home. They’d need to go anyway, if they planned on making curfew.

“Evening, songbirds, mind if we join?” Looking up and over her shoulder, Maya saw a trio of boys peering over the backs of their chairs, just behind Lucas and her. “You’re them, aren’t you?” one of them asked, pointing from Maya to Nadine and Riley. She didn’t recognize them, but Sophie did.

“What are you guys doing here, you don’t even go to my school.”

“Hey, it’s your birthday, little cousin,” the boy shrugged. “We heard there was going to be a show.” Maya looked back to Sophie with inquiring eyes.

“That’s my cousin Wyatt and his friends, that’s Kyle, that’s Bobby,” she introduced with a sigh. They didn’t have to ask how she felt about their being here.

“Sorry, boys, we’re all booked up,” Maya looked to the three of them. If this didn’t end fast, certain others could be drawn to intervene, and that was the last thing they needed.

Cousin Wyatt gave a chuckle like ‘fine, whatever,’ before signaling his friends to follow. And they were gone. Letting a few seconds go by, Maya turned back to Sophie. She tipped her head to her. _Alright?_ Sophie nodded. It didn’t seem fair to let this one small incident be the way this night ended for all of them. So, taking no refusals, Maya called for all of them to take one more tour on the ‘dance lawn’ and they got up to go.

“Want the rest of mine?” she asked Lucas, holding out what was left of her smoothie. He accepted it gladly. He hadn’t been satisfied with his selection, and he’d been making puppy eyes at her as soon as she’d told him what she’d selected for herself.

The invading cousin and company were not seen again, and with their last dance a joyful mess, the night was closed out in style. The guests had been leaving more and more now, so much that it was a shame Maya and the others had to go, too, as they might finally have had the place to themselves. But they had to get going, and so they started on the goodbyes, thanking Sophie for the party as much as she thanked them. These thanks also included four envelopes, each containing a cheque, one for each of the band members. Sophie insisted on including Smackle on this, her contribution being there even if she wasn’t. It was a wonder none of the others asked Sophie herself how much she was paying them, knowing how curious they’d been about the amount.

They split off to their cars. Maya trailed along with Lucas as they went to find his. She knew they were cutting it close to curfew, though she didn’t bring it up. He was always such a careful driver, it was pointless to put pressure on him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	147. Her Night of Shocks

_Before…_

She was fighting hard against the urge to fall asleep as they drove on from Sophie’s on back to her house. Lucas was probably near as exhausted as she was, and if she hadn’t had a full performance bearing her down even more she would have asked if he wanted her to drive instead.

She tried to stay awake, but she knew she wasn’t wholly successful. The drive was feeling like some chopped up cut and paste sort of thing, where one second she’d see one thing outside the window, and in the next it’d be something else she knew was actually further on, which meant she’d dozed off and woken again, several times in the minutes soon after they’d turned off from Sophie’s street.

Had she been more awake, she might have seen she wasn’t the only one fighting hard against sleep. Had she been more awake, she would have been able to tell Lucas what he himself couldn’t seem to make himself respond to, the tiniest of warning bell that tried to be heard, telling him to just pull over, call someone, anyone who was able to keep their eyes open. Because he couldn’t… he couldn’t…

In some amount of irony, there had been a moment, a very small moment, where both of them were suddenly very, very awake. Unfortunately, it was the moment right before the hit came, and then… Neither of them was awake at all.

X

_After…_

Maya’s tests had all come clean. Save for her arm and the cut on her head, she had come from the crash with little more than bumps and bruises, and she would only have to stay at the hospital until the morning, which was just as well. After the shock of the accident and all that had followed, the exhaustion had her all over again. She already knew Lucas had also gotten through his own tests with the same all clear, and even though she couldn’t go to see him, just knowing that he was alright was better than nothing and would have to last her until morning. But now… She wanted to sleep, she _needed_ to sleep, except they wouldn’t let her. And by ‘they’ she meant her parents. They _said_ that they’d let her rest, but then there were questions in their eyes. They wanted to know what had happened out there, how the accident had happened.

She wouldn’t speak of it. For the most part, the reason was her own, genuine reaction to the memory of it. Every time she remembered that she had been in an accident, she would see it in her mind’s eye. The moment of impact, the deployment of the airbags. The pain… then nothing.

She’d regained consciousness as the paramedics were pulling her out of the car. They were talking to her, and at first, she didn’t remember the crash, but then she did. She remembered how he’d called her name… And then as soon as she remembered, she tried to get to him, but the paramedics were telling her to stop moving, even as she could see two others pulling Lucas from the car, too. She would call to him, loudly, but he was still unconscious, something she couldn’t know in that instant, and that had sent her thoughts in a host of dark tunnels she never wanted to visit again. Why wasn’t he moving? Was he… Oh, was he…

“Hey, hey, look at me,” one of the paramedics talked to her. “What’s your name, sweetie?” She looked at the woman. “Your name?”

“Maya… Hart,” she finally said.

“Alright, Maya, what’s _his_ name?” the woman nodded back.

“Lucas Friar,” she answered again. “H-he’s my boyfriend.”

“I could have guessed,” the woman had given her a kind smile. “He’s just unconscious, alright?”

Until they’d arrived at the hospital, until someone had reaffirmed not only that he was alive but that he would be alright, those words had been the only thing to keep her from losing it. At some point she would process the fact that she had broken her arm, just like she would feel the strange sort of relief that the arm she’d broken was _not_ the one she used for writing, or drawing, or painting.

All the events following the crash still felt too big for her brain, and so when her parents would ask her what had happened, all she could manage to do was frown, and wince, squeezing her eyes shut, and then eventually they would get the message. But then there was the rest, and as tired as she was, she wasn’t so tired or out of it anymore that she didn’t know to expect more questions, and not just from their parents. Probably the only reason she hadn’t had to deal with those yet was that her parents _hadn’t_ been present before. Now that they were… the cops wanted to know what had happened, too.

Had they been drinking? No. Drugs? No. Were they speeding, did something get in the road? She didn’t know, she’d been dozing off the whole time. She had nothing to give them, and it was clear to anyone, and so they’d let her be, but now she had to wonder. It was one thing with her, the passenger, but Lucas had been driving. Up until then, the fact that her boyfriend had crashed his car with her in it hadn’t seemed to be too much of an issue to her parents, who’d just wanted to make sure she was going to be okay. But now with the passage of the police officers, the picture had filled out all over again, reminding them of the other part of this story.

They were looking at her now, and she could see the doubts form in their eyes… the assumptions. This was _his_ fault, _he’d_ done something, and because of that here was their child, bloodied and broken, maybe more so in their eyes than what she actually was. What had he done?

“You know how careful he is…” she had asked, before sleep had claimed her. “He would never…” The sentence remained unfinished, though even if it had been finished, it probably wouldn’t have done much more to set their minds at ease.

She’d been woken a couple of times throughout the night by some nurse or another checking on her, but each time she was back asleep almost as soon as they had left her. In the morning, when she woke up for good, she wished she could say it took her a moment to remember where she was or what had happened, but then she was aching all over, none more than in her arm and on her forehead, and so she knew exactly where she was. Her mother was asleep in a chair next to her, while her father wasn’t there, though she guessed he wasn’t far, or he’d gone back to check on the twins.

The way was clear, and with a single-minded focus pushing aside everything else, she got out of bed, finding her balance somewhat shaken at first but quickly recovered. She started to walk, slowly, looking around at every bed she passed. He couldn’t be far, he couldn’t…

“Lucas…” she breathed, and he looked up from where he sat on _his_ bed, where he appeared to have been on the verge of rising in search of her. Neither of his parents were at his side, though again she knew they’d be somewhere in the vicinity. That didn’t matter for now. For now, all she wanted was to reach him, to hold him in her arms… well, arm. When he saw her, saw the state she was in, he looked like he was going to cry, and he did. She cried, too, putting her good arm around him, carefully minding his shoulder. For that brief moment, she felt no pain.

“I’m so sorry…” he said, bowing his head.

“It’s not your fault,” she shook her head, cupping his cheek. “I’m okay, we’re okay, it’s…”

“Maya?” She looked up to find her father there, along with Mr. & Mrs. Friar. The looks on their faces were hard to explain. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say they’d just been yelling. “Come on, let’s get you dressed, we can go home,” Shawn came up toward her.

“I was just…” she looked back to Lucas.

“Now, please?” he insisted, and the tone in his voice worried her, but thinking little of it, she turned back to Lucas again, kissed him briefly, then went after her father, back to her bed, and her mother still asleep. Her father was quiet. He had a bag with him, from which he pulled one of her shirts he must have gotten from home, sleeveless, along with a large vest of his.

“I just wanted to make sure he was okay,” she spoke slowly. Her father didn’t say anything, and still she knew. For the time being, it might have been best if she didn’t mention Lucas.

TO BE CONTINUED


	148. His Night of Confusion

He hadn’t slept most of the night. To the casual observer it would have seemed like he had stayed soundly asleep all through the night, except when nurses would check in on him, but really, he’d been pretending. In the end he might have slept about an hour somewhere around sunrise, but the rest of the night, he just lay there, keeping his eyes closed, half of him hoping it would help him actually fall asleep, the other half just wanting his parents to think he was asleep. He’d been tired before… so tired… so tired… And he still was now, but sleep didn’t care. Sleep might not have seen him as worthy of its embrace anymore, not after what had happened.

The moment of impact seemed to be stuck in a loop in his head. Over and over… and over and over… all he could recall was the click in his mind, knowing what was going to happen, just before it happened, and his first thought, his only thought… being of her. He’d called her name, tried to reach for her, to shield her if he could, and then… then he was in an ambulance, waking up to be told he’d had an accident. _Maya… Maya…_ They’d put his shoulder back in place, and the pain… the pain… _Maya?_ They were taking him to the hospital.

“Maya?” he’d said it aloud in that moment.

“That your girlfriend?” one of the paramedics asked. “Right ahead of us. She’s been calling after you. Lucas, yeah?”

“Yeah…” he’d just laid there after that, as they’d driven off.

Waking up from his very brief slumber in the morning, he opened his eyes with the one thought. _Maya… Where’s Maya?_ No one was there, he could go, he could find her… he had to find her. He sat up, his mouth pressed together against the pain, swinging his legs off the bed, getting ready to get up, and then… she was there. Her hair was still curly from the braid… the braid… The party at Sophie’s house seemed like forever ago now, instead of the night before. Still curly… but also stained with blood along the hairline… and her arm…

He’d done this to her… he’d done this… The impact still looped in his head, and then he was crying, and she was crying, and she was holding him, and he was holding her, and it felt like he was only now breathing, the first since the crash, because she was okay and he could see it with his own eyes, feel her near, warm and alive…

But then her father was there, and his parents along with him, and then she had to leave. He was powerless to stop her, though when she kissed him, he kissed her back, and he had to remember that they were alright now, and he would see her again later. He watched her go, and when she was gone, his mother stepped up, telling him to lie back down, and he didn’t argue. Everything hurt.

“We’re heading home soon,” his mother told him, and she sounded so different from her usual self, he could have thought she was a whole other person, not possibly Melinda Friar. She would have been speaking at a mile a minute, and the fact that she wasn’t felt wrong. He needed her to be her ‘talk at a mile a minute’ self, somehow, because the fact that she wasn’t… He was fine, he knew he was, his tests had been fine, and he was being discharged, so she should have been relieved, should have been gearing up for ‘Operation Son Care,’ that was what she’d be doing right now, but something seemed to be holding her back, like _she’d_ just had an impact.

“Mom, I’m okay,” he said, watching her quietly pull clothes she’d gotten for him to replace the ones from the crash. She didn’t change. She looked at him, gave him a small smile, touched his cheek, but even so. There was something in her eyes, a sadness, and whatever was causing it, he couldn’t pinpoint it.

He let her help him get changed, neither of them speaking. His father was there, too, so silent, so unmoving, he might have been a statue. He was even more unreadable, and Lucas might have worried for this, but really at this point the only thing he wanted was to get out of this place, to get home. Once he got there, he could call her, talk to her more than he’d been able to earlier.

He hadn’t asked about his car, and honestly right now it didn’t matter to him. He wasn’t going to be driving again, not for a while.

Finally, he was dressed, he had all his things, and he was cleared to leave, so they left, his parents flanked on either side of him. It was strange, walking out of this place when he hadn’t walked into it through the door. And walking into the morning light, with the pain, with the lack of sleep and weighted exhaustion… It was like his body wasn’t his own. It was Sunday morning… He was supposed to work at the museum today. Had someone called to say he wouldn’t show? What about school in the morning? Was he going or would he stay home for a day or two? He didn’t know why he was thinking about these things, except maybe that it was all he _could_ think about without getting caught up in the impact loop, in the pangs of guilt deep in his gut. _Maya… Maya… Maya…_

TO BE CONTINUED


	149. His Night of Silence

When they’d come up to his father’s car, he swore he felt the smallest pinch at his heart, his ears ringing with the sound of impact. He tried to shake it off and climbed into the backseat. They were going home, everything was fine, at least… they would be, from now on… Weren’t they?

His father got behind the wheel, his mother up front with him, while he sat on his own in the back. And as they drove off from the hospital, the pair of them barely looked like they were moving, sitting there. They weren’t speaking, not to him or to each other. The car was silent, save for the world outside, and the longer it lasted, the smaller he felt in his seat.

They had barely spoken to one another since the night before, since his parents had come to find him in the emergency room. They had said even less since the cops had come in to ask him about the accident. Were they waiting until they were home to let him have it? If they were… as far as he was concerned… he was ready to receive every hit.

He had never felt so low in his life. Not even when he had been suspended from school and forced to repeat a year, not even over the ski trip mistake that had nearly cost him Maya’s friendship and any potential of their becoming more than friends. The impact loop was getting louder in his head, the only thing he could hear in the silence of the car, and the louder it got, making his head pound, and pound, and pound, all he could think was that they had been lucky.

He could have killed her… He could have died, and even that didn’t frighten him more than to think he could have been the cause of _her_ life being brought to an end. His whole body ached, his shoulder more than anything, and there was no complaint in him. He would heal. _She_ would heal, too, he knew, he did… It had been making all the difference between his staying in or getting out of that hospital bed.

But she could have broken more than just her arm, and… He couldn’t remember, he’d only seen her so briefly, which was the arm she’d broken? Could she still draw? Not remembering it, right then, it felt like a panic attack brewing in him. Remember… remember… She’d held him, for a moment, in the hospital… It came back to him, the sight of her standing there, her still curled hair, the cast, the bandage… the blood… It wasn’t her drawing arm.

The panic retreated, but what remained underneath was what had already been there, the guilt that weighed him down like so many boulders crushing him. She could have broken more than just her arm. She could have died… She could have died… He could have killed her…

His throat felt tight, his eyes were stinging… He couldn’t cry, not here… Please, not now… He tried and tried to keep it together. Did he even deserve to keep it together?

The car drove past his old middle school. He’d been so caught up in his thoughts, but his eyes had registered it as they passed, the building… where they first met. And the steps out front… where they used to sit, him and her… Memories and memories flooded him, and in the deluge all his barriers were washed away.

And the silence of the car was broken by his sobs growing louder as he sat there and cried. He tried to stop, pushing his good hand against his eyes as though this would give him back some control. It wasn’t happening.

When they stopped at a red light, his mother reached back from her seat and pushed the button to open the window next to him. A rush of fresh air came in, and he breathed it in without having been aware of her intervention. It wasn’t going to make him feel completely better – even half better – but there was some relief, and it got him home.

As the car came to a stop and the motor was turned off, the remains of his break down continued to fill the silence. But finally, words, just a few.

“Take all the time you need,” his father said in an even tone.

His parents left him alone in the car, and he sat there for a while more, breathing in, breathing out, trying to defuse the mad beat in his heart. When the breathing didn’t do enough, he kicked the seat in front of him. He kicked it a second time, a third… He kicked it over and over, until his foot started to hurt, and that right there, the new pain… That did it, just enough, enough that he was able to take a breath that properly landed as far as it needed to go, enough that he was ready to get out of the car and head into the house. Whatever happened next, he was ready.

When he came in, his parents were off in the kitchen. He could hear them talking, just barely, and he was so sure he wanted to go in there, to hear what they were going to say. But the moment he was so close to this, his feet, one of them throbbing from the seat kicking, carried him away from the kitchen and toward the stairs. He climbed up to his room and moved slowly toward his bed, sitting down. He kicked off his shoes, folding in his leg to poke and press at his foot to see if he’d done any real damage.

Silence again… And out of the silence, the impact… Out of the silence, Maya, standing near his hospital bed, patched up but broken… Out of the silence, her name echoing in his mind, the only thing he could think of.

He picked up his phone and called her.

TO BE CONTINUED


	150. His Night of Fear

As he waited, listening to the constant ringing of the phone, he wondered if he might have written first. Maybe she wasn’t home yet. She had left the hospital, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she? As it rang on, he spotted Dash, standing just at the door to his room, staring at him with curiosity. He couldn’t reach out to signal for her to come forward, not with one arm in a sling and the other holding his phone, but then she came toward him, stopping at his feet, staring up at him with concern. He was about to hang up and send Maya a message when the ringing was replaced by the sound of her voice.

“Lucas?” she answered, and he closed his eyes, breathed. “I was just about to call you when you did,” she told him, and as relieved as he was to hear her voice again, he could hear in hers the same feeling, toward him. “We just got home.”

“Us, too,” he told her. A few seconds went by, neither of them saying anything. They knew what they needed to talk about, but for a beat it seemed much better to ignore the subject, to just talk to each other and not acknowledge what had happened. But he knew that couldn’t be, and she probably did, too. He went for it first. “How was the ride home?” She sighed. “Bad?” he asked.

“It’s… complicated. Half the time they’re worried, they’re checking that I’m okay, comfortable. And then the rest of the time, they’re just… sharp, like they’re angry but they don’t want to show it.” He didn’t have to ask who they were angry with, and she wouldn’t have had to answer if he did. Maya’s parents were caught between worrying over her and wanting to tear him in two… That sounded about right. “They wanted to take me to breakfast somewhere, but I just wanted to get home. So, after we got back home, my father went out to get it and bring it to us instead. My mother’s upstairs with the twins and Mrs. Talbot from next door. She stayed here with them all night.” He heard a bark, then another and another. “The dogs have been all over me since I got back,” she told him. “They’re all piled on my lap right now… I’m kind of okay with it…”

He could just imagine her sitting there, Tuck, and Queen, and Ghost, cuddling up to their favorite girl, like they knew she’d been through something bad and they were dedicating all their powers of comfort on to her. He looked down to Dash, still sitting there, staring up at him like she wondered why he wasn’t picking her up.

“I really wish you were here with me right now,” Maya spoke again, and he could only grip his phone a little tighter.

“Me, too,” he promised. “How… how are you feeling?”

“You know when you go back to school the first day back, after the summer vacations, and you remember you spent weeks and months going there every day, but it still feels a little new again? Kind of like that, times… ten. Everything’s a lot more surreal than I thought it’d be. I came down here and it was like I’d only dreamed this place and I found out it was actually real.” It wasn’t entirely what he had meant, and after a pause, she went on like she’d known. “Feels like I got tossed around like a doll. My arm’s the worst, I keep forgetting, which is really weird, and then I do something with it, and I regret it right away. Also, it already itches in there…”

It felt so good to hear her voice, and he could hear in her own voice the slightest release. She’d needed to talk to him, too.

“Just don’t stick anything in there, Dylan did that, once, and he lost grip… When they took the cast off, it was like cracking open a treasure chest.” And she laughed, and he felt the world return around him, making him smile. But the impact, it was still there, the impact and the fear and just everything. His smile lost its grip. “I could have… I might have…” his voice trembled, and he knew the tears would be coming out of him again.

“Stop,” she spoke softly, like she was reaching through that phone and holding him. “Don’t even go there, okay?” she went on, and he could hear those tears raising in her, too. “We’re here, we’re both here.”

“I know… I know, but…” he shook his head.

“No, please just listen. I know what could have happened, and it… it scares the hell out of me, too. But I don’t blame you, not one bit, and you shouldn’t blame you either, I don’t want you to. You hear me?”

“Yeah…” he spoke quietly. He believed her, knew she was telling the truth, that she didn’t put any blame on him for the accident, and it _did_ make him feel a little better, but he knew it couldn’t fix everything, and much as he’d try not to blame himself, the world wouldn’t let him forget.

“Hey, I have to go right now, but I’ll call back as soon as I can, okay?” she told him, and he knew without her saying it: her father had just returned. So, with a pair of ‘I love you’s, they hung up. He sat there on his bed for a few seconds before putting his phone down and very carefully lowering himself down to sit on the ground, where Dash raised up her two front legs and set her paws on his leg before coming up closer, staring up at him and looking concerned.

“It’s alright, Dash,” he told the dog, scratching at her ear. She kept staring at him. Maybe she saw through his claim, saw how little he believed in it.

TO BE CONTINUED


	151. His Night of Pain

He was going to have to go back downstairs sooner or later. He knew that. He was going to have to talk with his parents, talk and be talked to. He knew that, too. But sitting here, on the floor, up in his room, with his dog snuggled up to him like she was trying to give as good of a hug as her little legs would allow, he couldn’t make himself move. Sitting here, with the turmoil of feelings in him still going round and round and keeping him off balance… How was he supposed to say anything when his parents talked to him if he couldn’t stand on his own two feet, grounded inside and out?

How long did he have before they’d come up and start the conversation whether he was ready or not? His father had told him to take all the time he needed. How long was that? Was it really ‘as long as it takes?’ How long would it take? Sooner or later he’d have to leave this room, for food, for bathroom usage, for… general human contact… What if he wasn’t ready? What if he was never ready? He could be powerless to move from this spot for the rest of his life, and how could he help it?

Maya didn’t blame him, Maya didn’t want him to blame himself. Except there were the facts. The facts were that he had gotten in that car, with her there next to him, and he’d driven, and he’d lost his focus and started to fall asleep. And because of that, because of his inattention, he’d crashed the car, and injured himself and her both. And even if it never got so bad that they were permanently changed or… or killed… it was only by chance. It could have happened. And… and none of it might have happened if he’d been able to understand he wasn’t in any condition to drive.

So how was this not his fault?

He would replay the moments leading up to their departure from the party, trying to remember… He’d been tired, sure, they all were, the girls from the band in particular and understandably so, but he hadn’t realized he was that tired, if he had…

She didn’t want him blaming himself, but anything he thought about, when working back through last night’s events, still felt to him like he was trying to come up with excuses and nothing else. Something that would lift the burden from his shoulders when that burden was exactly where it belonged. On him. _His_ burden. _His_ fault.

All this past week they’d done almost nothing but prepare for that party, and hope for it to come closer, faster. And it had been a wonderful party, one great evening, with his friends, with Maya. But now… now a stain had come to taint it all, a heavy black ink splotch, spreading and spreading and obscuring everything good without mercy. If he had known that this was what they’d all been waiting on… If he’d known what this night would have turned out to be… Would he have been as anxious for it to come? Would he have been having such a good time?

He squeezed his eyes shut again, with the faint hope that his thoughts would stop spinning around and around so fast. The exhaustion was not helping, he knew. Maybe if he slept he’d feel better, just enough that he didn’t hit the same arguments over and over. But that was the thing, wasn’t it? He actually had to manage to fall asleep, and the last night had shown him one thing, if anything, and it was that the nightmare in his head was very skilled in keeping him painfully awake.

_Just lie down. Close your eyes. No blame._

He could hear her in his head, he knew she’d tell him as much, and so he got up, careful as he could, before lying down on his bed. Dash was quick to climb up to join him and he didn’t stop her. She set herself down, nudging at his hand until he would reach it up to set on top of her head. Lucas looked down at her there, still staring up at him, still looking as concerned as any dog had any ability to be, and he couldn’t have appreciated her more. Sure, she didn’t know what had happened, couldn’t understand it. But the fact that he had her there, it was something he could hold to in that moment that felt unchanged. And he fell asleep within all of five minutes.

His dreams felt like a battle. On the one side stood the pain, the fears, the guilt, advancing on his defenses, trying to cut through his attempts to rest, to allow his mind to settle. So as he’d find himself having one of his habitual dreams – him and Maya, exploring all those places she’d drawn them visiting in her letters when she’d been off with her parents in Europe – suddenly a car would appear and come crashing with the violently familiar sound of impact. His car. Him and her inside. They’d be somewhere, a landmark, anywhere, and he would turn to her and suddenly she’d be there, in her hospital gown, the cast, the bandage, the blood… But then they’d end up somewhere else, somewhere new, and it would start all over again, peace, until reality came knocking. Still, he slept, carrying her around his dreams, her and the trust she had for him.

When he woke up again, he looked at the clock by his bed. It was almost three in the afternoon. He’d slept over six hours. He stayed lying there a while, staring at the ceiling. The sleep _had_ helped some, made him feel a bit more in control of himself. And it was time, he knew… to go downstairs, to face his parents.

TO BE CONTINUED


	152. His Night of Regret

Dash was right there at his heels as he made his way down the stairs; she didn’t leave his side all day. Lucas didn’t know what to expect from his parents when he’d find them. He tried not to imagine the worst. He remembered the aftermath of his suspension, back in 7th grade, couldn’t forget the disappointment in his father’s eyes, how his mother had tried so much to keep a positive outlook even though he could see how sad it made her, to see him end up down the path he’d taken. He remembered all those mornings, his father driving him to school, and how it made him feel. Most of all, he remembered how it had changed their relationship as a family, and how happy he was when it had all started to take a turn for the better. He never wanted for them to sink so low again.

The suspension was bad, but this, the accident… It was so much worse, whether or not they had been fortunate in their misfortune, to come away from it with only the injuries they had sustained. All he could see in his head as he descended those stairs was the old look of disappointment on his father’s face five years ago, and his mother… He thought about how she’d been since the pair of them had come to find him in the emergency room. This muted, closed in person who just wasn’t his vibrant and energetic mother. He and Maya had been in that crash, but it was all of them, their families, who’d gotten hurt, too.

As he came down the stairs, he heard voices in the living room. His father, his mother, and a third… It didn’t take long to recognize this one either.

“Lucas…” Pappy Joe stood, the first of them to see him coming. The man walked over, and then before Lucas could say anything, his grandfather was holding him. It knocked the breath from him, to receive this embrace, though it didn’t last very long, as the tall man stepped back, looking at his arm in the sling. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked.

“No,” Lucas promised him. Pappy Joe stared at him for a few seconds, putting a hand to his good shoulder with a nod. He looked more worried than anything else.

“I tell you, when your dad called me last night and said what had happened to you, I nearly ran right out of the house, right then. But he said you’d be coming home today, and you needed your rest. Looks as though you needed even more than that, didn’t you?”

“Yes… I did,” he blinked. How long had they all been sitting out here?

“You must be starving right about now,” he went on. Truth be told, he _was_ a bit hungry, sure, but he wouldn’t go so far as to say starving. His stomach still felt like it would refuse or churn away pretty much anything right about now. “What do you feel like eating?” his grandfather was undeterred. Lucas tried to think of something, but the best he could come up with was…

“Soup, I guess?” he shrugged and regretted it immediately.

“Soup…” his grandfather repeated, caught off guard for a moment before giving a good nod. “I know just the place. I’ll go and get that for you, alright? Won’t be long, I swear.” And he was gone. And then it was just him and his parents.

Lucas slowly turned toward them, sitting side by side on one of the sofas. They were quiet, all of them, and for a few seconds all they could hear was Dash swishing her tail and the little noise it gave whenever it hit his foot. The longer the silence went on, all he wanted to do was to launch into heavy apologies, to tell his mother and father how sorry he was for frightening them, and for disappointing them. He didn’t want to hurt his family more than he already had, last night, or five years ago.

Maybe it showed in his eyes, in his face and in his posture. Eventually, his mother had been the one to break the silence.

“Did you sleep alright?” she asked, still in that muted tone that was so unlike her.

“I _slept_ , I…” Did he want to tell them about the nightmares and the almost nightmares? Should he tell them how he hadn’t really slept the night before, save for about an hour in the end? Now that he looked at them, he was realizing maybe they already knew about the pretend sleep. Whether they’d known it all along or only later, like when he went almost right to sleep after they’d gotten back, he couldn’t say. “It was awkward, with…” he motioned to the sling. Every bit of speech seemed so forced, he just wasn’t sure where to take the conversation, and the harder it was, it only made him feel worse.

“Lucas, do you think you can try and tell us what happened last night?” his father spoke then, and Lucas looked at him, at his mother. Right, here they were. He moved to take a seat, across from them, in the seat where his grandfather had been. Dash parked herself at his feet, standing guard.

“I… I really don’t know,” he confessed. “We left the party, and… I felt fine,” he shook his head, recalling. He remembered so vividly, standing next to his car for about a minute, he and Maya kissing, her being so spent from the party, and the performance, giving him that loopy grin as they got in the car, and then driving off. “I mean I was a little tired, but… not like I was falling asleep, and then…” It was so fuzzy, this one part. Much as he’d try to remember, it just wouldn’t be more than snippets. “I guess I started to doze off, but I never… It was like I felt it but I wasn’t aware of it. And then… a-and then…” The impact… darkness… He couldn’t say it, could only bow his head.

TO BE CONTINUED


	153. His Night of Change

There was a beat of silence after he’d told his story, as brief as it was. He wished he had more to say, wished he had a more solid explanation for what had happened, but he really didn’t, and he hated that it sounded more like an excuse than the truth, which was what it was. Would they believe him? Would it matter? Even hearing himself say it, he could only tell himself the same things over and over. _You shouldn’t have been driving. If you were so tired, you shouldn’t have gotten behind that wheel. You could have gotten yourself killed. You could have killed other people on the street. You could have killed Maya._

Even so, as he thought these things in his head, he could hear her voice in there again. The one that championed his freedom from blame. She would say he hadn’t known, couldn’t have known, that it would end like that. And she would reiterate how careful he always was, so why would he knowingly put them, put _her_ at risk? He heard her, but he still couldn’t commit to using those defenses for himself.

“We’re just glad you two were alright.”

It took him a moment to comprehend, that his father had said this, that it might mean what he thought it meant. He made himself look up, at his father, at his mother. There was concern in their faces, but much less of upset or anger than he might have expected. Actually, he wasn’t sure there was any at all. If he couldn’t feel the pain in his arm, he would have thought he was still dreaming, and the crashing car would plow through their living room at any second.

“You…” he was unable to press on with the question, so surprised as he was for their response.

“Obviously we wish none of this had happened, and that you or anyone else could have managed to prevent it, but for all of that… we know you, we trust you. And we will stand by you.” His mother… still on the solemn side, but with just the hint of the old flame under there. He was shocked. They weren’t yelling, they weren’t shaking their heads or telling him how disappointed they were… It still felt like they should be, but at the same time, he just… They weren’t upset, and that… that made him feel like he might burst into tears again, if for another reason. Except he still felt like there was more to this. And looking back to his father, to the way his mother broke any line of sight between them, he knew the hurt was still to come, and it would be bad.

“Your mother and I had a talk with Maya’s father this morning, while you were sleeping,” his father started, and Lucas felt a chill. It used to be he never knew how to behave around Shawn Hunter, before he was even married to Maya’s mother, back when he’d just been the guy she saw as a fatherly figure, who dated her mother. Maya would tease him and say he was afraid of Shawn, and he would say he wasn’t, but then somewhere inside him, if he was truthful… The guy terrified him, because he knew he loved Maya very much and wanted to protect her, too, and he saw him, Lucas, as the potential for trouble. But things had changed a lot since then, and Lucas really felt like he and Maya’s father were in a good place.

He only had to recall the look on the man’s face that morning when the three parents had come along to find Maya standing with him near his hospital bed… and there were all the things he could have ever been afraid of, come to life.

“What did he say?” he made himself ask. His mother said nothing, but she made this little sound which he heard, much as she’d tried to be subtle about it, because he knew what it meant. Disapproval, of someone else’s behavior.

“He was very upset, as you can imagine,” his father started, gesturing with his hands as he spoke, something he didn’t do often. When he did start talking with his hands, Lucas could only take it to mean… it was either that or lose his temper. “And we… we couldn’t very well blame him for it. After what you two went through, and how much worse it could have been…” Lucas expected no less; he had been feeling it ever since he’d woken up in that ambulance.

Again, from his mother, the tone of disapproval, and in his father, a hesitation. For the first time, Lucas felt a dread rise in him, a warning that he hadn’t understood just how bad this was about to get. And then he found out why.

“He told us how they feel that… it might be best that you… took a step back,” his father went on, in such a way that suggested those were the best words he felt secure in using. Lucas sat frozen there, wondering if he understood what his father was trying to say.

“A step back… from…” he slowly managed.

“From her. He also asked that you don’t go to their house,” his father replied, and his hands did plenty of speaking then, though Lucas was too dazed to really pay attention.

“For how long?” he could only ask, foolishly so, because in the end it really just felt like stepping up to walk the plank, if that plank was weak and splintered and would give out the moment he so much as stretched his foot toward it.

“He didn’t say.” Right then, he had a pretty good guess what the actual words had been, and they felt like cannonballs in his guts.

“I… I’ll go wait in my room until Pappy Joe comes back,” he mumbled before getting up and absently walking back toward the stairs. Dash followed.

TO BE CONTINUED


	154. His Night of Consequence

Walking back into his room, trailing his feet more out of motor memory than anything, Lucas felt like the ground really had given out from under him. He tried not to let himself sink into the mess underneath, but right now all he could feel was just… a faultline, creeping up his heart.

For all the thoughts that might have formed in his parents’ minds, in _her_ parents’ minds, and anyone else’s either, he knew there was no one out there who felt more guilt, more blame for this entire situation than he did. Whichever way they tried to formulate what had happened on that night, the fact remained that he had been the one at the wheel. There had been no other vehicle, no animal or person running into the road, no obstacle whatsoever. He’d just lost control of the car, and then… the crash. It wasn’t the car, it was him. His choice, his mistake… All him… His injuries, her… her injuries… Him.

Knowing all this, he nonetheless had never foreseen this turn. This mistake, this terrible mistake, he had only ever wanted to make up for it, in what way he could. He was going to be there by her side, helping her as she healed. He’d only have to wear the sling for a couple of weeks, and he’d still be recovering but he could still help her, couldn’t he? Only now…

His reflex was to reach for his phone and call her, but even as his thumb hovered over the green circle on the screen… he froze. Instead, he went back to messages and wrote her, asking if she could talk. He sent it, and then he stood there, waiting. After a while, he started to pace. Something in him was rising, a sort of frenzy, of panic. He couldn’t stand still, a new sentience coming through his body. It had never entered his mind that this might be the consequence of the accident, when really it should have. And maybe he had known, but… he had convinced himself it wouldn’t get to that, because if it did then… then he was losing her, like he’d been afraid he would all along.

_I could have killed you… Did I kill us instead?_

When she wrote back, ten minutes later, he looked at his screen and he saw the words, processing them in what way he could. _Can’t talk._ Then, after a few seconds, another. _Parents._ Then another. _Sorry._ And another. _Love you._ This one she sent three times, like she wanted to make sure he knew. Finally, one more. _Talk later. Promise._ The small bursts of words made him guess she’d been sneaking the messages out in what way she could without getting caught, but she could only pull it off for so long.

Setting his phone down, he sat at his desk, even as he could still feel his legs restlessly fidgeting below, the imposed separation set between Maya and him getting to feel very much like he’d been locked into some windowless room and claustrophobia was setting in. There was a part of him, the part ruled by the guilt, that fully understood and respected their choice, but the other, the one defended by Maya herself, the one that was his love for her, his need to be a part of her life and to have her as a part of his life… that one was climbing the walls, looking for a way out.

Not this… Please, not this…

His eyes stopped at the calendar stuck on the wall over his desk. October. The last square had been drawn in by Maya, with pumpkins and ghosts and the likes, right at the top of the month. Halloween, a day full of memories and meaning for the two of them. And in the blank square next to it, she’d drawn a heart, with a great number 2 inside it.

November 1st. Their second anniversary, two years since they had finally… finally become boyfriend and girlfriend.

He’d already been planning, of course he had, and she had, too. The beauty of having two very special days – special to them – back to back meant that they could both have their part in making things feel as special as could be. One, the day of the almost second kiss, the day that had set them on the path to finally say what needed to be said. And the other, the day of the second kiss and the first of many more, the day they let any and all see what they’d carried secretly (or as secretly as it could be called when all their friends had pretty much figured it out already) for such a long time. So, they had decided that one of them would get Halloween, and the other would get the 1st of November. Maya had taken Halloween… of course she had… and so it was his duty to make that anniversary into a day to remember.

Today was October 20th. Just over a week before what was to be their ‘spookversary’ and anniversary, one after the day. But now… but now…

What were they going to do? What were they going to say? Their friends had been at the hospital the night before, he knew, though he hadn’t gotten to see them or talk to them for very long. They’d been allowed through, so briefly, in twos and threes, solely to give them a chance to see he was alive and well enough, but they would have to go before long, and so they had all had much the same reaction. They would come in, see him with his arm in a sling, his broken fingers also secured, and he could tell they had been worried, all of them, even as his current state managed to reassure them just a bit. They asked if he was okay, and if he was in a lot of pain. They promised they’d help, if he needed anything. And then they’d had to go, so they’d gone.

There were messages from all of them on his phone, wanting to know how things were now, but he hadn’t gotten around to replying to any of them yet. He didn’t know what he was supposed to tell them, especially now, thinking about what this consequence would mean for all of them.

Pappy Joe soon returned with the promised soup. Lucas had sort of forgotten about all that, and he still didn’t feel all that hungry, though he knew he needed to eat. So, he sat with his family. He ate the soup. It was more mechanical than anything. Spoon in, soup up, swallow, repeat. He had no genuine memory as to whether it had been good or not. His parents and his grandfather all let him be, didn’t try very hard to involve him in conversation, and for what parts of it he had managed to pay attention to, they seemed to be going out of their way not to talk about the accident, or this situation with Maya’s parents. They all felt for him, and for the response of Katy and Shawn, he could tell, but they wouldn’t go into it, not with him just sitting there. Pappy Joe had the most trouble keeping to that rule, but then his father would give _his_ father a shake of the head, a warning. And his grandfather would sigh and then he would start in on some other random thing.

Later that evening, as he was sitting back up in his room, trying to force himself to read his book for English, he got a message. He already knew, per his parents, that they’d give him a pass on school for the next week, but he needed to do something to occupy his mind… whether or not he actually succeeded in the effort.

The message came from Riley, but as soon as he saw it, he understood who it had really come from. According to the message, it was a nice evening for dog walking in the park.

Soon after, he was heading out, with Dash on her leash. The dog was more than onboard at the prospect, and so they were off toward the park. When he got there, he didn’t have to figure out where to go. As he came up the path, he spotted Riley, sitting there with Tuck, and Ghost, and Queen, the three of them chasing after one another, circling around the smiling brunette. Lucas carefully crouched to unhook the leash, and Dash dashed to join them, while Riley looked up at him, giving one nod and then a tilt of the head. _Over there._

Maya waited for him, at their usual spot. He knew they wouldn’t have much time to talk, and he didn’t plan on wasting any of it. She stood when she saw him coming. She looked better than she’d did at the hospital, no blood on her, the long hair pulled in a ponytail and still sprouting curls. The bandage on her forehead was still very much of a focus puller, along with the cast on her arm, but she looked normal otherwise, and the relief was in him for it. Though he could also see the look, in her eyes, the one that no doubt matched his own, the helplessness of the ban installed between them.

She didn’t wait for him to reach her. She marched toward him, and she put her arm around his neck, minding his shoulder. His free arm, still holding the leash, went around her, too, and he closed his eyes, forgetting everything for a few seconds, injuries and consequences, or pain and guilt. He focused on the familiar warmth of her, on the love he expressed as much as received. Then they were kissing, like hungered people filling up to attend to a present hunger and one yet to come, too.

For all the chaos they’d been stuck in since the night before, one thing had not changed, one thing never could. He loved her, and she loved him.

“I can’t stay, I just had to see you…” she breathed as they pulled away, still holding to one another.

“I know, I know,” he told her. She had her forehead pressed to his, but he knew the pained look on her face was not to do with the cut. “I know,” he whispered, rubbing at her back.

They didn’t speak, not for now. For now, they only wanted to hold each other. In time however they needed to go home. Riley was staying over at her house, which had led to this whole canine escape. Before they parted ways though, he reached into his pocket. He’d brought a marker. And on her cast, near the crook of her arm, this was what he wrote:

_24_

_7_

_365_

_(366)_

She looked at it for a moment, puzzled, and he smiled, pointing to each number as he translated for her. _No matter what happens, I love you, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, 366 on leap years._

TO BE CONTINUED


	155. Their Problem After the Crash

It was Sunday again. A week had gone by since the accident, which might have aided in getting life to start going back on track, but it hadn’t been long before Lucas understood that wasn’t to be the case. He hadn’t been to school, or work, and generally had little reason to leave the house except to go and walk Dash, one of the few allowances he was granted, as he was meant to be resting, to be healing. He would have gone restless if he hadn’t had this much.

Maya had been in much the same condition, he knew, although this wasn’t very far from the entire breadth of his awareness. He hadn’t actually managed to be anywhere with her physically since the previous Sunday’s dog walking expedition. Neither of them could say for sure, but they suspected her parents had figured out the ruse. She couldn’t go out walking the dogs on her own, with three of them and her with only the one good arm, and with Riley and the rest of their friends in school, the only ones left to accompany her on the dog walks would be her mother, or her father. No meeting at the park for her and him.

The best they had to go on were their phones, and even there they had some hesitation. There was some amount of concern, on both their parts, on how far her parents would take this thing with keeping the two of them apart. Were they going to check her phone? Were they going to take it away from her if they knew she’d been calling him? They’d already stopped her seeing him, what harm could he do from across a phone line? But they didn’t know, and that was kind of the problem. There had never been any occasion up to this point where they had been put in the crosshairs of parental intervention, and with this ban already in place, the phone was their one lifeline to one another. It could not be lost. Calls were erased from the logs, and messages, as hard as it was, were erased, too, from her phone at least.

He hated that she was put in this position, but he knew it was her choice and she’d made it gladly, for their sake. If he just remembered this, then he didn’t have to feel so bad about being glad for what they had. These calls, these messages, they were making all the difference.

He was hardly ever alone. His mother was at home with him a good 95% of the time. Any activities, any obligations she might have had, she had either cancelled or rescheduled, because she needed to be home to look after her boy. Her old self had slowly been reasserting itself over the week, and on the one hand he was glad for it, but on the other… It brought back memories of his suspension days, being home with her, except in this case she was in nurse mode, and that could be a bit overwhelming. And the more she’d returned to old form, the more she had taken to express her frustrations toward Maya’s parents.

The thing there was… he didn’t like her doing it. He knew she was trying to show her support for him, showing her faith in him, but he also saw that she didn’t understand where _he_ stood on the matter… Not that he had given her very much to go on, of course. Even he wasn’t entirely sure how to express himself there. He hated this situation he and Maya had been forced into, but he also mostly understood where her parents were coming from in implementing this ban.

If it wasn’t bad enough for the two of them, their friends were getting caught up in it, too. Every day when they’d get out of school, barring any other work or family or general obligations, they would of course want to go and look in on their homebound friends. But as they couldn’t see both of them at once, they’d have to decide where to go. They had to be separated, too, picking between their friends. The best they could do was try and alternate, but they also didn’t want it to end up being that most of them were at one place, while near to none were at the other. It was more complicated than they would have believed.

In the whole, his arm and his fingers were almost the least of his worries. Sure, they hurt, but he wasn’t exerting himself all that much. He spent most of his days laid out on the couch – mother’s orders – with Dash over him, or next to him, or at his feet, or on the ground near him. He had watched way too much television, too many movies… How could he be in much pain? Going stir crazy, now that was the real pain.

What got him through those days was the odd covert message throughout the day. Every so often, she would send a longer message, and he’d know she was alone. He couldn’t know for how long, but he wouldn’t worry himself over that. He’d write back, and they’d get to have a short conversation. And when she wouldn’t be alone anymore, she’d signal him with a simple ‘366,’ and he’d know the replies would be forced to stop, if for a little while.

And then at night, when her parents had gone to bed, and she was back in the basement, she would call him, and they would speak… for an hour… or two… or five… They were stuck at home all day, what did it matter if they slept at night or later? It wasn’t ideal, and they knew it would only work for so long, but… surely this ban would be lifted sooner or later, wouldn’t it?

TO BE CONTINUED


	156. Their Problem After the Hit

As terrible as the accident itself had been, the week that had followed was just… another kind of nightmare. This one took place in the waking world.

When she’d been pulled from the crashed car, put into the ambulance, when they’d been driving toward the hospital, a lot of her thoughts went to Lucas, of course, but the rest went to her parents, who would have to get a call that told them where she was. It would give them so much worry, and the thought of it had made her feel so bad for them, back home, unsuspecting and soon sent into a rushing panic. Then when they’d come and found her in the emergency room, she’d been as relieved to see them as they’d been to see her. Foolishly, she had thought to herself that the worst was over.

She’d only gotten her first hint that this wasn’t so on the morning after, when her father had made her leave Lucas’ bedside so they might start getting ready to head home. Even after they’d left there, even after they’d gotten home, they hadn’t told her about what they’d done, what her father had told Mr. & Mrs. Friar. But then they _had_ told her, and it had felt like impact again, right to the gut. She’d been so taken aback, maybe still a little hospital dazed, and for all that she’d just sat there, speechless.

But her eyes, oh how they’d pleaded. _Please don’t do this… Not this, not now, not to us… not to him._ He already blamed himself so much for the accident, and this… this would be too much. She had told him she didn’t blame him, and she meant it. This wasn’t her lying to make him feel better. She knew him enough to know he was the least reckless person, especially as a driver, especially as a driver with passengers, whether she was that passenger or not. She knew that, however this had all come to pass, even if he was responsible of the act, it hadn’t been born out of carelessness or intent. It was an accident, a mistake, and it could have been either of them.

_Not to us…_ that was them, her family. For how much she knew their decision had come from a place of love for her, she could see what they couldn’t seem to understand. This decision, this ban of Lucas’ presence, it was going to affect them all. They had to know she wasn’t going to take it blindly. It was going to force her to lie, would force them to act like some kind of parental police. It would turn them into obstacles, would turn their happy little family into something fractured, and that pain… that couldn’t be healed with bandages or plaster casts. That would always be there.

Maybe in some effort to let them come down from this place in their heads, she had done her best to show herself compliant. She hadn’t argued, she’d kept it all in. If she rose to the challenge, it would only make it worse. That realization hadn’t been an easy one. Oh, how she wished to rage, to yell, to tell them how wrong they were about this, about him. How could they forget so quickly the boy they’d known, the boy they’d trusted so seamlessly for so long?

The week following the accident had tested her resolve, time and time again. She’d take what comfort she could in getting to spend more time with her baby sisters, even if that had been complicated by having the one arm in a cast. She’d take comfort in her dogs. She’d take comfort in those times she got to write or speak with Lucas. She’d take comfort in her friends’ visits. But then there’d be her parents…

In some parts, she could sort of see some shape of recognition in her parents’ faces. Her mother most of all, had shown sadness when they’d laid down the ban. Maya couldn’t say just what was going through her head at the time, what memories were being recalled to the surface. Maybe she was seeing the old difficulties return. As for her father, somewhere in his anger toward Lucas, she knew the guiding hand was his fear for her, but maybe there was a fear for _them_ , too, him and her. He was her father now. He had been, to some degree even before his marriage to her mother. But he was her father in every way, in being her mother’s husband, and in having adopted her. Even so, she had seen many an instance where he would get this look in his eyes, like he remembered the fact that he hadn’t _always_ been her father, and maybe he was afraid one of these days something would happen that would make her use that distinction against him. She would never, not even for this.

Even in knowing all this, she had spent the past week tiptoeing around her mother and father in a lot of ways. She could hardly look at them without remembering this thing they had imposed upon her, without feeling like they’d start questioning her at any time or tell her to hand over her phone. And when she’d get the chance… when she’d get the freedom… sending secret messages to her boyfriend, calling him at night when they were sleeping… Sneaking around was always made to feel like something great, but it didn’t feel that way to her. It shouldn’t have had to be like this… it shouldn’t… but it was… and she hated it, hated it… Not them, never them, but their choices… She could hate those all she liked, and she would. And holding on to that in quiet, all these days… that was the nightmare.

TO BE CONTINUED


	157. Their Problem After the Split

On Monday morning, after a week at home, Maya was going back to school… finally. They were _both_ going back to school, of course, even if she couldn’t bring it up at home, where her parents were within earshot. Maya was anxious to return, really, she was. For how much her views of school had changed for the better in recent years, she could confidently state that she had never been so glad to say she was headed to school as she was on this morning… She had been very close to turning stir crazy here. And Lucas was at school. He was in three of her classes, they couldn’t keep her from going to her classes because of their issue with him. She did have some concern as to how one of those three classes would go, when the one who taught it was her father’s best friend and would no doubt act as his eyes and ears in that room… possibly worse still, in the school as a whole. Maya tried not to worry too much. Her father was one thing, but she’d been wrangling Cory Matthews since she was a kid.

As anxious as she was to finally return, she knew there were going to be changes, right from the start, and that… that sat uneasily in her heart. For over two years now, every single school morning – barring illnesses or other absences – Lucas would be there to pick her up, without fail. He wouldn’t be picking her up today… or for any day of the foreseeable future. It had bugged her enough that she’d very nearly made some kind of entreaty with her parents. But she’d held her tongue. They were still too caught up in the aftermath of the accident, and it would only make things worse, would only heighten the chances that they’d do something more drastic to keep them apart. She would keep control. She had to. For them, she had to.

“Are you sure you’re ready to go back?” her mother asked as she was pulling her backpack on to her shoulders. “You say the word, I can call your school and…”

“Mom, I’m fine, I have to go,” she sighed, moving out the door without another word. She didn’t mean to be so short with her, but she couldn’t help herself. She was following their demand; she didn’t have to act like she liked it.

She was still walking up the street, to go and take the bus – something she had hardly ever had to do since they’d gone from middle to high school – when she spotted a familiar car coming up and stopping at the curb just ahead of her. Nadine was at the wheel, Rebecca sat in the passenger seat next to her, and Riley and Scott were in the back.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Maya Hart, back from the depths of home confinement,” Nadine drawled, leaning out of her open window. “Wanna get in, or are you that curious to see whether anyone will give you their seat on the bus?”

She couldn’t help but smirk as she got into the back, next to Riley, who picked up her good hand in hers and gave a comforting smile. Of all of them here, of all of them among their friends who weren’t Lucas, Riley was most aware of what was going on in her head nowadays. Maya had known from the start that she’d be able to count on Riley in all this, that she’d back her up in any and all that she needed. She had been over at the house every day since the accident, would have pretty much moved in if not for the need to also see her parents and her brother.

Riley knew how nervous she was to go back, to have to deal with this parentally imposed situation and with the tale of the accident being scrutinized by any number of teachers or schoolmates. Her friends had said how the only thing they’d been saying was that Maya and Lucas had been involved in a small car accident, that they’d been injured and would be out of school for a week or so, but that they would be alright. They hadn’t mentioned anything of circumstances and they hadn’t pointed any fingers. And that was how she’d hope to keep it, but she knew the questions would pile up, and all she wanted was to have things get back to normal… as normal as they could get.

“What are we going to do at lunch?” Rebecca asked from the front.

“What do you mean?” Maya asked. The girl hesitated, looking from Nadine, to Riley, then back to Maya. Then she understood. _Lucas._ “We do what we always do,” Maya told her, and the rest of them in the car, too. She was drawing her line in the sand with this one. All of them, they had lunch together, unless they had other activities keeping them away. She wasn’t going to force her friends to split up any more than they had to. She’d sit clear across the table if it would appease her parents and their curly spy.

“We do,” Riley agreed with a firm nod. Nadine nodded along, and so did Rebecca, and so did Scott.

She took a few deep breaths as they neared school. This was going to be okay, wasn’t it? It had to be okay. They just needed to figure out their rhythm, how the hell they were going to make this work, until this whole thing was fixed… It had to be fixed… It had to be soon… Did her parents even understand what this was doing to her? To him? To all of them?

TO BE CONTINUED


	158. Their Problem After the Consequence

When the morning finally came that he was allowed to return to school, Lucas woke up feeling queasy. For as much as he had been looking forward to returning there, to get his life started back on the right track, the actual return left him notably uneasy. He supposed it could have been worse, if things with his parents hadn’t turned out the way they had, if his father had started driving him again, like he’d done after the suspension. His father _had_ offered, as had his mother, of course. Lucas had hesitated. He didn’t know what would be best, between getting dropped off by a parent or just taking the bus on his own. But then the third solution presented itself and he took it. Zay was coming to pick him up.

Actually, it was Zay, and Dylan and Asher, and the four boys had gone off together, called back to old times in every way except for the part where they were able and allowed to drive. Lucas was so very glad for their presence in that moment, for how it made him feel to have them there with him. All through the previous week, at any time where they were able to come and visit him, they had done so without bringing up anything to do with the accident, much to his relief. They gave him the ability to exist, for those precious moments, like all was well. It wasn’t, naturally, but now that the initial shock of the event had tapered off, all he wanted was to keep that momentum going.

The only things that remained were having to deal with the injuries, and with people… and with the ban as imposed by Maya’s parents.

As they’d neared the school, Lucas had finally brought up something he’d been hoping to discuss with his friends, knowing he could count on them to step in. Friday. November 1st. The anniversary.

Walking past the bench, finding it empty, it gave him something of a twist in the gut, but he had ignored it as best he could, because he knew he needed to keep focus. As they stepped into the school, people started seeing him, noticing him. He could see in their faces the degree of reaction, telling him whether or not they’d heard about the accident. Some of them, like his former teammates, some classmates, came up to see how he was doing. He spoke to some more than others, overall just trying to get to his locker, so he could then get to class on time. He didn’t feel like answering the same questions over and over… especially when some of those questions involved Maya’s injuries, and some people asking if he’d been drinking, or just careless… Zay and the others had helped him navigate through all that. Of course, then there were teachers, too, and those were harder to dodge, although his saying he needed to get to class worked fine in a pinch.

At last, he had made it to his first class, and right there waiting outside the classroom was Maya, getting her cast signed by Julianne Shelby. After the other girl had moved on to get to her own class, Maya turned and spotted him. She smiled, and he smiled back, coming up to her. As one they sort of scanned the hallway for any spying eyes and, turning to one another once again, they let out a sigh, acknowledging this gesture before finally allowing themselves a greeting kiss. He held her close for a moment after that, and she welcomed it gladly, reciprocating at once.

“Morning,” he spoke slowly.

“Morning,” she replied. There was plenty more they wanted to say, to ask, but they needed to get into their seats, as class was about to start. When their teacher came along, Lucas saw how nervous Maya appeared, and he understood why. She’d told him, in one of their late night calls, how she wondered if her parents or Riley’s would talk their French teacher and their Physics teacher into making them sit apart from one another. He had to admit, he tensed along with her when their French teacher came up to them upon entering the room. But then the woman had only inquired – in English, breaking her usual _‘en français’_ rule – as to how the two of them were doing. And when they both told her they were doing okay, she smiled, nodded, and got on with her class. Lucas breathed out, reaching out for Maya’s hand even as she was reaching hers out for his.

Afterward, he had dance class, although he’d be watching from the sidelines here, of course, as he also would when the period came for baseball right after lunch. Going to that class afforded him his first encounter with Sophie Zvolensky since the party. She had sent a massive basket filled with chocolate and cookies at the start of the week, same with Maya, though they hadn’t seen or spoken to her since the party. When he saw her now, the shy girl wore a look on her face Lucas was very familiar with. Somehow, she felt some guilt for what had happened to them, and no matter how much Lucas assured her it wasn’t her fault, it was still there in her eyes.

“If there’s anything I can do…” she told him, and he thanked her, promised he’d let her know, and in the same moment, he had a thought.

“Actually…” he called, and she turned back to him at once. “Talk to Maya when you see her? She might need help with something… for Halloween.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	159. Their Problem After the Barriers

Before the accident, she had already been trying to come up with ideas for group costumes, as they had all done last year. Their group had gone from ten to eleven, which could have seemed like a problem if they hadn’t already pulled off the ten-strong thing, with Snow White and the seven dwarfs (plus Huntsman and the witch). She hadn’t landed on one definitive idea just yet by the time they’d had the accident though, and then in the week that had followed, even being stuck at home with nothing but time on her hands it had not come to her. Adding to this the fact that she had her parents’ ban to deal with, it had sort of… taken away her overall interest in dressing up for Halloween, which was so far from how she usually felt about the day that it had left her feeling sadder still.

She couldn’t get her parents to understand what this day had come to mean, in the last two years, with how Lucas remained a topic to sidestep in their house. Julianne Shelby was having a party again this year, and Maya did sort of want to go, even if she didn’t dress up, but there was some doubt as to whether they’d even let her go, when the last party she’d gone to had ended with the accident. And they’d know Lucas would be there, too, which would be like setting all the pieces back in place like that Saturday after Sophie’s birthday.

Then on Monday, her first day back, Sophie had come up to her in fourth period. She had that shy regretful look about her, looking at the cast on her arm. But then Maya had asked her if she wanted to write on it and the girl had smiled, opening her bag to fish out a marker. The plaster was already filling up but she found a spot. When she had finished, Sophie had looked back up to her and asked about Halloween. Maya didn’t know how she knew it, but she had a feeling the question was born out of a conversation with Lucas. The two of them did have dance class together earlier in the morning.

Maya had told her about her doubts, about her wanting to go to the party at Julianne’s, but lacking inspiration for a costume, especially with her and her arm, demonstrating with a wave of her arm in its cast. Sophie had only thought for a moment, looking at her, and then her face had lit up and she’d offered an idea. Maya couldn’t pretend she wasn’t intrigued. Although this would require some crafting she wasn’t particularly able to manage in her present condition. And the party was only three days away… But again, ever seeking to offer assistance, Sophie had offered to help.

Well it was Thursday now, and against all expectations, the costume was ready. She wasn’t wearing it while they were at school, for several reasons, but she _was_ going to the party, and she would wear it then.

“Your parents know you’re going?” Lucas asked her as they sat to lunch. After three and a half days now being back in school, things were as close to normal as they could presently hope for them to be. There were still the injuries to deal with, and the curious eyes, and the questions, and… and that ban. Surprisingly, Mr. Matthews hadn’t been too much of an issue. Riley had told her how it probably wouldn’t be, that he prided himself in separating home and work. He hadn’t forced either of them to change seats, didn’t penalize Lucas in some way or another. Still, sometimes, they could see in his eyes how he would have done it gladly. Maya tried to look at it from the perspective that this man had seen her grow up side by side with his daughter and in some aspects saw to her with that same scrutiny, which had something like sweetness in it, but then she didn’t approve of her parents’ treatment of Lucas for the accident, so she wouldn’t give Mr. Matthews a pass either.

“Yeah, they do. Not like lying would have made things any better. And then we compromised so my father’s going to come and pick me up from Julianne’s when the party’s over. You?”

“Zay’s driving me,” he nodded. “I’ll just have to hide when your dad comes.” She frowned, sighed. “It’s fine, really,” he assured her, taking her hand.

“It doesn’t feel fine,” she shook her head.

“I know. But it’s just what it has to be right now and I’m willing to work with it, if it means we get our spookversary…” She smiled, like he must have known she would. “And our anniversary.” Her smile brightened up all over again. Two years today since that almost second kiss. Two days tomorrow… After what they’d gone through in the last couple of weeks, what they might have gone through if it had all gone worse… All they could think about was that they were still here, and that they still had each other, no matter the barriers set between them by her parents.

“Did you find a costume?” she asked him. She hadn’t told him what her costume would be, and she didn’t expect him to actually tell her what his costume would be, but he could at least tell her if he’d found _his_ workaround for the sling on his arm. She knew he’d be able to stop wearing it before long, though that time hadn’t come yet, so it would mean including it into his costume.

“Sort of…” he told her, the barely hidden smirk telling her he definitely had something. She was just so happy to see him smiling these days, with how miserable he’d been since the accident, so she was just going to have to let it slide, just this once, instead of trying to pry it out of him as she usually would.

“Then I can’t wait for tonight.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	160. Their Problem After the Choice

His costume choices had been somewhat limited by the sling. He had searched up and down the internet, trying to come up with something that would grant him some way of accounting for that additional accessory. If one existed, where the sling actively factored, he didn’t discover it, and with time being short, he had to abandon that option and instead turn in the direction of concealment. For a while, the best idea he could come up with involved some long, hooded cloak he could throw on, keeping one side pinned to keep the sling covered. He might be able to get on a long wig and some facial hair to match, maybe find some sort of long staff, be a wizard of some kind, although… maybe not so much on the staff, or any other accessory he’d have to hold on to with his one free hand…

At this point he was either that or ‘guy from an action movie, on the day after The Big Action Sequence,’ looking all beat up and with the sling on his arm, but then minding the fact that he _had_ been in an accident, part of him was concerned it might have been taken the wrong way. So, it was back to the cloaked wizard. It felt like it might have been the right thing, although with some detail missing.

After school on Thursday, he went home to get changed before getting picked up for the party. He had to get his mother to help him with the wig and the fake beard. But even as she was getting ready to glue the thing on, it just didn’t feel right. They had both played secretive about their respective costumes this year, Maya and him, but he knew if anyone was going to be able to help him solve this problem of his, it would be her. So, he took a chance to text her, explaining to her his little conundrum, photo evidence included. She was quick to reply.

_Do the beard. Meet me in the downstairs bathroom. I have an idea._

He didn’t know what she was planning, but he trusted her. So, his mother glued the beard to his face, and soon after Zay picked him up and they were off to the Shelby house. When they arrived, he saw Riley, decked out as a flapper, so he knew Maya must have already made it to their rendezvous point. He went down the stairs, careful not to trip over his cloak. He made it to the bathroom door, finding it shut. Hesitating for a moment, he finally gave it a knock.

“Wizard man?” a voice called from within. He smirked, making the fake beard twitch. “Door’s unlocked,” she informed him, so he reached out of the cloak and opened the door. Sat on the edge of the tub, Maya stared back at him, trying very much to keep a straight face but then melting into a smile when she caught his reaction to _her_ costume, and how else _could_ he react in any other way but mesmerized surprise when there sat none other than Wonder Woman herself.

She hadn’t bothered with a wig, and with the amount of natural hair she had, he could understand. Her own blond curls had all the majesty she might ever need anyway. He could see the merits of the costume, in her case achieving everything he had been trying to do, trying to hide the signs of the accidents. The tiara over her forehead hid the still visible signs of her stitches, while she had somehow managed to either acquire or fashion the bracers so that her cast was nowhere to be seen. As for the rest of the costume, well… He was speechless, completely gobsmacked.

“And _that_ ,” she pointed to his face, “That’s making uncomfortable parental car rides worth it.” She stood up and came over to him, taking in his own look, and she had so much trouble keeping herself from giggling at the wig, or the beard, the wispy eyebrows, all of it peeking out of that velvety hood. “I’m sorry, I just need to let it out, otherwise I’m going to have shaky hands later…” And the laughter was released, filling the room with an echoing giggle fit. There was no chance for him to feel awkward about this. He was just happy to make her laugh, any time, and now more than ever. Although he had to wonder about the shaky hands comment, until he spotted a large box he recognized as one of the makeup kits from her mother’s theater. “Alright, okay, I’m good…” she took a few deep breaths, steadying herself. “Sit,” she commanded, and he sat on the edge of the tub, watching as she opened the kit.

“What are you going to do?” he had to ask.

“A little blast from the past… I’m going to cut your head off,” she gave him a grin, and now he understood. Two years ago, the night of the almost second kiss, the night they were commemorating with these spookversaries, had taken place at the haunted house for Auggie Matthews’ school, with all of them made up and dressed up as various creatures and characters. _His_ costume had involved some truly masterful painting – as far as he was concerned – by Maya, who had made it look as though his head had been cut off and now rested atop his neck.

So, they had spent the first short stretch of the party that day, holed up in the Shelby house’s basement bathroom, with Wonder Woman turning the wizened wizard into a headless wizard. All he’d have to do would be to go up to unsuspecting partygoers and, just when they least suspected it, surprise them with that ‘floating’ severed head. Last year had been all about getting people to bite into wicked witch Maya’s ‘poisoned’ apples. Now they would get to see how many people screamed…

“Happy spookversary,” he told her when she finished with his neck, smiling up at her. She leaned in to kiss him sweetly.

“And happy spookversary to you… Now let’s go make some people scream…”

TO BE CONTINUED


	161. Their Problem After the Ban

The party had been a rousing success. Whereas it might have been all about dancing and hanging around with their classmates for most of them, for Lucas the decapitated wizard, and for Wonder Maya, it was, as it had always been for the two of them, about getting swept up into a bit of spooky fun. They had gone out there to get a few screams, and had they ever done it. The trick had been to make sure no one said to anyone else just what it was that had gotten them to scream, which made it so that the party would be going along for a while, before being interrupted by a sudden bit of screaming and screeching. Things would then get back to normal until before long… another scream!

They could only pull it off for so long, of course. This was still a school night, and Maya’s father had come to pick her up. Lucas had made himself scarce as she’d left, and soon after he had his own ride home.

The next morning, he awakened to the remnants of paint on his neck, and the knowledge that it was November 1st, coming together to make it so that he awoke thinking of her, and of the day two years before, where she had become his girlfriend. That morning had been so complicated, with his calling on to friends, the turmoil of the almost kiss the night before making him wonder how they were supposed to move forward, to continue keeping things as they were or to take a chance. And then when he’d finally gone to pick her up, and they’d started toward Riley’s house, they’d just stopped, and she’d taken him by the front of his jacket. _“Just making sure neither one of us thinks they need to step back this time.”_ And then she’d kissed him and… that was it.

Now here they were, two years later, and… this one was going to be complicated. It wasn’t as though either of their parents didn’t remember what today was. And much as they might have hoped that her parents would have loosened up again by now, they hadn’t. Lucas remained unwelcomed, and that night, they wanted Maya to be home right after school, and there she was to remain. Anniversary or no, the rules hadn’t changed.

Maya didn’t care.

“They can ground me for a month after, we are having this anniversary,” she’d told him as they’d stood in the Shelby bathroom the afternoon before. The plan had been set right then and there. It would mean going straight from school to whatever he had planned. No going home to change. Making things more complicated was the fact that neither of them was in the position to drive. But then Ray had offered himself as their driver and they were back on track.

He had taken them away from the school lot and off to step one in their adventures in anniversary: clothes. One trip to the mall, splitting off for a spring through their own preferred stores, had seen to their going from day to day school wear to a more formal attire, ideal for the situation. In his case, a clean button up shirt and a simple jacket and pants, and for her a new dress and shoes. The girl from the store where she’d gotten the dress, hearing the brief beats of Maya’s story, had volunteered herself to do something fast and sleek with her hair. She had done very well, and when the couple was reunited, they could only look at one another in a burst of smiles.

Back to the car they’d gone, and Ray had driven them off to a restaurant they had never been to themselves, which came highly recommended by both Ray and Asher. It seemed the reason they had never mentioned it to any of their friends before was because it was the place they went to when they wanted to have something as close to a date as they would presently allow themselves. The place looked great, and soon they’d taste the food and they would see why they’d come back to the restaurant time and again.

“Just tell them I talked you into it,” Lucas told Maya as they were sitting, looking through the menus. She shook her head. “I don’t mind taking the blame on this.”

“But I do,” she insisted. “I’ll serve my time, I’ll be solemn, unbroken,” she told him, sitting rod straight in her chair, chin up. He had to smile. There was the girl he’d fallen in love with…

So much had changed in the past two years… and so much had not. What had _not_ changed was that he loved her. What _had_ changed was just how much. The two of them had grown, of course they had, in so many ways. There had been good times… so many wonderful times. Then there had been some not so good, either in their lives as a whole, like the basketball situation, or as a couple… the accident, the ban… But through it all, neither of them had wavered. They had loved one another two years ago, and further yet… they loved each other now, more than ever… they would love each other… _24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, 366 on leap years…_

With the consequences of their escape this afternoon being left to the boundaries of ‘things not yet important,’ they had been able to settle into this time they got to spend together. He looked at her, beautiful as she was, and he still felt like pinching himself, like he was in a dream. She was here, with him, his girlfriend… For this day, he didn’t give in to the worries of how long this ban would hold, whether it would defeat them in the end, whether they’d have to deal with it, on and on as days and weeks and months went by… He only looked at the girl sitting across from him, held her hand, talked with her, laughed, ate… Here, all was well.

“I think you’ve still got a bit of chopped neck on your neck,” she told him, pointing to her own throat.

“I’m sure I do,” he reached to try and rub at his own neck to see if it would come off.

“Yeah, more to the right, more… Right there,” she directed him. “You’re going to need more than that to get it to come off.”

“No kidding,” he chuckled, and she laughed, too.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered later,” she promised. “You were a pretty solid headless old guy back there,” she complimented. “Twenty-seven screams, that was impressive.”

“All thanks to you, Wonder Woman.”

“Shh, secret identity,” she held a finger to her lips.

“Right, almost forgot,” he smiled, remembering the night before, the costume…

As fun as it had all been, shocking one person after the next (twenty-seven screams, but twenty-one people… They’d gotten Riley four times and the same for Zay), that had not even been his favorite part. They hadn’t done much dancing, though for a while they’d stood there, swaying about to the music, with her hidden away as he’d pulled his good arm and the cloak around her. A quiet moment, and nearness… What more could he have wanted of that night?

After dinner, they took their desserts to go, so they might go and sit somewhere outside and just enjoy the cool breeze and the stars… They already knew her parents were on to her, but they weren’t going to let that rush them. If anything, it made them want to enjoy the moment even more.

They’d decided on no presents this year. That they got to have this evening together, after the accident, and with this ban hanging over them… This was enough. They were enough.

It couldn’t last forever, they knew. Well within the boundaries of curfew, Ray drove them back. He dropped Lucas off first, and per her request he left Maya up the street from her house, so she could walk the rest of the way on her own. Before they would be parted at Lucas’ house, Ray stepped out of the car to give the two of them a moment.

“Get a message to me whenever you can, let me know how it went?” Lucas asked, holding her close.

“I will,” she promised, nuzzling up close and quiet. He kissed the top of her head. “This was worth whatever they throw at me,” she went on to tell him, and he believed it, felt it. They lingered in a kiss, minutes melting along, like neither of them was ready to let go. They hadn’t let themselves think about it all evening, but now they had no choice. The ban was not yet lifted, and the anniversary was over. Now it was back to how it had all been since the night of the accident.

TO BE CONTINUED


	162. Her Regret For Words

Her stomach had been in knots all the way up the street and to her house. She’d gone into this knowing full well the risk she was running but, if she was ever going to run it, then their anniversary… the day they had finally pushed past the barrier, _her_ barrier, the one she’d put between them and he had respected, for so long… The day had been too important, for him and for her, for her to just sit still. They’d gone and they’d had their evening, and she didn’t regret that one bit. If her parents could feel what was in her heart that night. Better yet, if they could feel what was in _his_ heart…

As she approached the house, she could see the lights from the nursery, and out front, too… and she could see her mother at the window, watching, waiting. The moment she spotted her, she disappeared from view. Maya sighed, walking on. The front door opened and there her mother stood, arms crossed before herself. There used to be a time where her mother would hardly have been aware if she missed curfew… Not that she’d missed it here, no, she was solidly ahead of time, but looking at her mother you would think that she’d shown up at four in the morning.

“Inside, let’s go,” her mother stepped aside to let her through as she came up the steps. As she walked in, there was her father, coming from the nursery where he must have been looking in on the twins.

“So, did you lose your phone, did you forget to charge it, did a bird fly away with it and take away your ability to use _any_ phone?” he asked. She wasn’t even going to try and answer that one; she knew what was coming. “Where were you?”

“You know where I was,” she frowned at him.

“Oh, of course I know, but still going to need to hear it from you.” All she could think was that they were being ridiculous, the pair of them, and it was manifesting like a volcano, building and building in her heart, much as she tried to keep it together. She couldn’t let herself go there, not now.

“Today… Today was our second anniversary. He took me out to dinner, that was all,” she stated, keeping it simple, when what she might have added on the end there was that it was ‘all we could do, because of you.’

“Maya, we talked about this, didn’t we?” her mother chimed in from behind her. The volcano was rising, rising…

“It’s our anniversary,” was all she could get herself to say, again.

“Doesn’t change anything,” her father shook his head.

“Two years…” she persisted. Rising… She clenched her fist, trying to pull that rumbling fire back down to some level she could control.

“We’ve been pretty lenient, all things considered,” her mother went on, and to hear this from her, to hear the both of them, turning into… whatever it was they were turning into… she couldn’t hold it in, the fire was sparking out the top of that volcano, and it was too late.

“Considering what?” she snapped, looking from one to the other. Her heart was beating so fast now. “Considering how ridiculous you’ve been?”

“Maya…” her mother warned, but that wasn’t going to hold her, not now.

“He made a mistake…” she pressed on, feeling herself well up despite her attempts not to cry. “A stupid, stupid mistake, and no one anywhere feels as bad about it as he does. And because of that, he’s been bending over backwards to respect your wishes, and so have I, but this… this is ridiculous,” she reiterated. “You’re forcing us into this right now, but today… today wasn’t the same.”

“It doesn’t…” her father started again, but she held her hand up for silence and carried on.

“Two years ago, to the day, I came to you two, both of you, and I told you about what had been going on between us, knowing how we felt in secret and wanting more. Do you remember what you told me? Do you? Because I do. I remember. You,” she pointed to her mother, “You said that he looked at me like I was everything that was good in the world, and that you’ve only ever seen him treat me with care and respect, that you… you couldn’t hope for anyone better. And you,” she turned to her father, “I called you, and you told me… You told me some things are worth the risk. And he _is_ , alright? Lucas Friar is worth the risk, worth _all_ the risks, and I know the accident freaked you out, but it happened to _us_ , to me, and him. I don’t blame him. Not one bit. He does though. No matter how much I tell him he shouldn’t, he does… so much that he was willing to take on whatever punishment would come his way. This?” she motioned to the pair of them. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

When she stopped, she had to stand there, catching her breath. That she’d managed to express this much without letting her anger seep through as much as it could have… that was a miracle in and of itself. Of course, now that she _had_ stopped talking, it would leave it open for them to start again, and it could still be that she would lose it, if they couldn’t see the truth of her words.

Her parents looked to one another, and whatever they were thinking, she just needed someone to say something, or she would just go down to the basement without another word. Her father looked like he was about to say something. But then her mother cut in.

“We’ll discuss this tomorrow. Go,” she nodded to the basement door. Maya breathed out. Not ideal, but it would have to do. She fixed them both with one last look, and she went down to her room.

TO BE CONTINUED


	163. Her Regret For Rules

The next morning, her sentence was laid. She might have laughed to herself, recalling how her mother had called their actions so far ‘lenient,’ if she wasn’t faced with just how true it all was now. Her phone had been taken, her computer, too, and she was grounded, all of this ‘until we decide you’re not.’ It was the weekend now, so whatever this meant for her school time hadn’t been rolled out just yet, but it was bound to be coming. In the meantime, when she wasn’t under lock and key (her dramatic expression, which had gotten her an eye roll or two) she at least was still allowed to go to work, although even that came with a warning. According to her father, they’d called Asher’s uncle, her boss, and told him if Lucas came around she wasn’t to talk to him, and if she did, then he was welcome to fire her. She was about 99% sure this was an exaggeration, but at this point, that 1% carried the weight of fifty.

Apparently, all that she’d told them the night before had done nothing. They were just that far gone, weren’t they? When they’d told her about their decision, she’d felt like they had just slapped her in the face… repeatedly. She’d just stared at them, and the words that came from her then were just those that went through her head.

“Don’t do this…” she begged. “Don’t do this to us… please…” They just stared at her, and she knew they didn’t understand what she meant. They just thought she meant Lucas and her, that she was being dramatic about a boy she claimed to love, a boy who’d nearly killed her. They couldn’t even see it, could they? “Us…” she’d pointed a finger to him, to her, to herself, her hand trembling. “We were _good_ , but this? Now? It’s telling me… you don’t trust me, because if you did… if you did, you’d listen to what I’m telling you, you would _trust_ that I know what I’m saying when I say he is as worthy as worthy gets. And you’re hurting him. And you’re hurting me… and us…” her finger pointed to each of them once more.

She’d gotten a flinch out of them after that, just a flinch, but it had been something, and right now, something felt like a foot in the door. They’d let her be after that, carrying away her contact with the world. She’d gone upstairs to the nursery, to spend time with Nellie and Gracie. If she’d stayed down in the basement, she knew she would have gone heavy on the drawing, traced and traced until her fingers went numb. At least up there, with those two little faces staring up at her like she was made of gold, she could forget her troubles.

“You two aren’t going to turn on me, will you? No, you won’t…” she whispered, leaning over the crib where they’d been placed, side by side. Nellie waved her little arm at the air, and Maya reached out her good hand to take hers.

She’d stayed with them until it was time for her to get ready for her shift at the diner. She didn’t know for sure… who was she kidding, she knew… Lucas would be there. She’d written him the night before, told him she’d get in touch with him when she knew what her parents would say. By lunch time, having heard nothing, he’d have to be wondering, and since he couldn’t just show up to her house… He’d know where to find her: the diner. She didn’t know if Asher’s uncle would really do what her parents said, but right now she just couldn’t handle more drama. She needed peace of mind and, unfortunately, it meant not letting him walk headlong into this whole situation until she had time to just… figure some things out.

Nadine had come to pick her up, and Maya had left the house with a short ‘catch you later.’

“What’s the matter with you?” Nadine asked when she climbed into the car. “Anniversary hangover?” she chuckled, but the look on her friend’s face forced her to grow serious again. “That bad?”

“I need your phone for a second,” Maya ignored the question. When Nadine handed it over, she quickly shot off a message to Lucas. _No phone, no computer, don’t come to the diner. Explain later. Love, Maya… 366._ She put the phone back down between them, turning her head to look out the window as they drove on.

“What happened?” Nadine asked. For a beat or two, she didn’t reply. Finally, she told her everything, about coming home the night before, pleading her case, and then that morning, the two of them tightening the screws on her. “Damn…” was all Nadine could say. “If you need me for any go between stuff, if you need any of us…”

“I know,” Maya breathed out, looking back at her. “Thanks.”

Lucas had written back, with only a reciprocated _366_ , which was coming to be shorthand between them. It said I love you. It said I’ll always love you. It said no matter what, no matter how bad it got…

Her shift at the diner kept her busy, but even then, her mind was just somewhere else. The cast was slowing her down already, forcing her to take extra precautions as she carried plates, and glasses… Asher’s uncle assured her she didn’t need to exert herself, that she could do whatever she was able to do. He would look at her and she knew… He would never fire her, not the way her parents had suggested. It should have given her relief, but instead… All it left her with was her parents, and this rift growing between them, this thing gnawing at her guts like it wanted to tear her to pieces.

TO BE CONTINUED


	164. Her Regret for Effects

A week had gone by since the anniversary, since the confrontation with her parents, and it had been a week she would give anything to forget.

The remainder of the weekend had already been a cold one. Maya couldn’t get herself to talk to them, every time she’d see them left her to feel like she would lose control from word one. She just couldn’t believe that they would go so far as they’d gone, taking all they’d taken and leaving her to have to sit in their presence to use them when she only meant to do her homework, or look after band things. And then the warning with her job at the diner, whether or not she actually believed Asher’s uncle would ever let her go… All it left her thinking about was what it would mean for school.

She found that out on Monday morning. She had half expected to learn one of them would decide to drive her there instead of Nadine coming for her as she’d done since her return to school, but thankfully it hadn’t come to that. Even so, she dreaded the arrival at school. She just knew something there would have changed. And she’d been right.

She walked down the hall toward her first period French class, only to find her teacher in hushed conversation with Mr. Matthews. Turning to Riley, she found her friend looked just about as disheartened as she did. There was no choice but to march forward and face the music, as Mr. Matthews walked off without a word and the students walked into the room. Lucas wasn’t far behind the rest of them, and Maya stared at him for a few seconds, the first time she saw him since Friday night, and the breadth of her contact with him came down to the text of warning she’d sent on Saturday morning. She could have cried, for how much she just wanted to dash into his arms and have him hold her, regardless of what consequences there would have been. But then her French teacher was right there, asking that she come into the room. Before too many of them had managed to sit, the teacher had addressed them all, saying they would mix things up, for purposes of allowing them to practice with different people, as she said. Maya knew very well what the real motivation must have been.

So there she found herself, shuffled off to one end of the classroom, while Lucas ‘mysteriously’ found himself on the other end, both of them assigned a seat at their given table that left them with their backs turned to one another. Afterward, they were sent off in opposite directions again, this time by their schedules. They were not set to see each other again until lunch time. It didn’t get any better there.

She wouldn’t have thought that they would manage to separate them there, of all places. The only assigned seating in the cafeteria came from one group making it clear from the start of the year that some table was their table, and from there the actual seats would more often than not vary from day to day. But then there was Mr. Matthews again, and much as he stated that he wanted to start having lunches with the Basket Cases team, to instill a ‘deeper team spirit,’ as though they didn’t already have that in spades… Maya knew here again what had given him the idea. All she had to do was face him with a fixed glare. The two of them had long established there were some limits to what authority he was able to wield over her. And here, as she moved to sit with him, and Nadine, and Rebecca, and Scott, he at least looked a little apologetic.

The afternoon started, her with English, him with… sitting in the library instead of playing baseball. And then they had their second and third/final class together. Except, once again, there came some seating changes. In Physics, their teacher managed to pass this off by asking her if she’d mind switching seats with Zay, so he could be closer to the front. This took her from sitting in front of Lucas, to sitting three rows to the right and four behind of Lucas. She did her best not to act surly to the teacher, who’d had no choice in the matter and was only doing his job. By the time she then went on to History with Mr. Matthews, she didn’t even wait for the charade, she just walked up to him in the class and asked him where she was supposed to go. He pointed, and she went without a word.

She was expected to come home right after school, unless she had quiz team things, or work. And from there the days just sort of repeated. All week. She didn’t manage to speak to him once. Not one word, and it left her with this anguish of a feeling like she might forget the sound of his voice. It was a ridiculous thought, truly, but at this point, what else could she think? The best she could do was to try and leave him notes, nothing so bold as letters. If not for her friends’ helping her sneaky endeavors, she might have had nothing at all.

The tightening of the rules was wreaking havoc on the time she spent at home, too. She was so angry with her parents, she would only speak to them when it was absolutely necessary and with as few words as humanly possible. Sooner or later, they’d have to understand they were taking this too far. And until they did, well… she had nothing good to say, so she’d say nothing at all.

TO BE CONTINUED


	165. Her Regret For Distance

Another week went by, and every day that went by genuinely felt to her like one more weight shackled to her ankles. Whatever her parents had intended in implementing such a punishment, she couldn’t imagine they understood how this would turn out. They had been forcing Lucas and her apart, removing her means of communicating with him out of class, and in class relocating them away from their usual proximity. They had done everything short of locking her away inside the house, but if there was anyone she had been left distanced from in the last few weeks… it was the two of them.

And at school… The last thing she wanted was to let it all distract her, but it often would. Every once in a while, she would find she had trouble focusing, her mind too full of turmoil. This wasn’t right… this wasn’t right. Who had they even turned into?

“Maya? Can you hold on a minute?” Mr. Matthews called to her at the end of History on Friday afternoon. She stopped just inside the door and turned back to him.

“Are you asking as my teacher or as my father’s friend?” she asked him, polite but short.

“Whichever one makes you stay,” he shook his head.

“I have to get to class, Mr. Matthews,” she shrugged. He reached into his bag, pulled out a pad and pen, wrote something quick, tore the page from the pad and placed it at the corner of his desk. Even from where she stood she could see it was an excuse slip for her next class. With a sigh, she moved back into the class and leaned to the edge of a desk in the front row.

“How are you doing?” he asked her. She stood there quietly for a moment, staring at the cast on her arm, flexing her fingers. She looked back at him, and without words her eyes said plenty. _How do you think I’m doing?_ “You know it’s not up to me, right?”

“Sure, no, of course it isn’t. You’re just doing what you’re told. But why? Teacher, family friend… It’s so easy for you to make the distinction, except sometimes… sometimes it makes no sense. What you’re saying right now, are you suggesting that you don’t agree with them? Because if you do, then I have nothing else to say, and if you don’t… then you’re not saying anything about it and that’s almost just as bad. You’ve probably seen more of Lucas than they have, being his teacher every day for the past three years and more. You know who he is, you know how he is. You know what this is doing to him… to me… If you’re not going to do anything to change this, then… then you’re not who I thought you were.”

She took the slip of paper from his desk and walked out. He didn’t stop her. When she got to her drawing class she wasn’t exactly late, everyone was still setting up, and her teacher merely acknowledged her presence, so she stuffed the excuse in her pocket and sat on her stool, setting up, too.

At the start of the class, she must have been working on the assignment for the day, but at some point she’d deviated from it and now she genuinely didn’t remember what she had been meant to draw. Instead, what appeared on the page was just… everything from the last three weeks, everything that had been clouding up her brain like a chilled frost in the air. Her anger, her frustration, her sadness, her pain… her loneliness. By the end of it, her hand was trembling and she had to stop, looking at what she’d created.

“Maya?” Her art teacher was standing over her shoulder. There was no point trying to hide her work or say she was still working on the assignment.

“I’m sorry, I… I know this isn’t what I was supposed to…” she mumbled.

“It’s alright,” her teacher insisted, still standing there, looking at the drawing. She knew self expression went a long way in this class, but this was maybe a bit more open than she would have intended for herself to be, here in the classroom. There was no closing it anymore though, and it wasn’t until her teacher handed her a box of tissues that she realized she’d been crying.

“Can I…” she pointed to the door and got a nod. Before she could go, she closed her drawing from view. Leaving it on display was too much for her.

She went into the girls’ bathroom, still clutching the tissue she’d taken but not looking like she had much of a clue as to what she’d do with it. She just stared at herself in the mirror, thinking… She was trying so hard not to let this become all she could think about, but it just wouldn’t stop… still made her feel like that night in the ER was going on.

The door to the bathroom opened again a minute after she’d walked in, and there was Rebecca, the only one of her friends also doing drawing this year. Maya saw she had a sketchpad in hand, _her_ sketchpad, closed like she’d left it before coming here.

“People were getting curious, I didn’t want to leave it back there,” Rebecca told her, and Maya let out a breath, almost as soon left sniffling, the tears still coming just a bit. “You want to come sleep over at my house this weekend? Get a breather?”

“Still grounded,” Maya could only shake her head.

“I’m sure we can make it work. Can we at least try?” Rebecca asked, taking a few steps forward. Maya looked back at her, finally gave a nod. The girl came up now, setting the sketch pad down and putting her arms around her friend. Maya breathed out, letting herself be held. In that second, she really hoped her parents would allow the sleepover. Rebecca was right… she needed a breather.

TO BE CONTINUED


	166. Her Regret For Feelings

She had not been privy to the call that had taken place between Rebecca and her mother, or between Siobhan Fitz and _her_ mother, only that by the time they all left school that afternoon, Maya made her way to the Fitz house, where she was to stay until Monday morning save for her shifts at the diner. Her parents had agreed to the sleepover, and that was… that was a good thing, wasn’t it? It was supposed to make her happy, relieved. Instead, it just reinforced the feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach.

Every time she thought she couldn’t feel any worse about the entire ordeal, there would be something else. And taking this moment away from the awkward silences presently reigning inside her home should have felt better than this, shouldn’t have felt like a little more of her life was being chipped away. They had agreed to let her go and spend the weekend at Rebecca’s, but it didn’t feel like they were starting to loosen up, no. It just felt like they wanted to win points with her even though nothing else had changed and they all knew it. It felt like a bribe, to make her thankful to them while also forgetting everything else.

Friday night was promising very little in the way of merriment, even with her having a sleepover at a friend’s house. She must have had a look on her face like she was going to burst into tears at any moment, because Rebecca had gone and called in the reinforcements. She had called Nadine and Riley and invited them both to join in on the night’s sleepover. Within the hour, it was the four of them. Maya would smile for them and make herself into the very best version of normal that she could pull off, but none of it felt genuine to her, and there was no way she was convincing any of them either.

On Saturday morning, while Riley and Rebecca went off toward the movie theater, Nadine drove Maya to the diner for their shift there. At least she thought that was where they were going, until Nadine took a detour and brought them to the park, where Maya found a familiar face waiting for her. When she saw him, she hurried over to him, walking briskly enough to almost be called running. He welcomed her with his good arm quickly wrapped around her, and the other arm – no longer in a sling but still recovering – slowly following behind.

Even as she just quietly held on to him, he explained that he’d tried to reach her, after he’d heard about the incident in art class the day before, but the only way he could do this was by going through one of the other girls. He’d heard about the sleepover, and asked Nadine if she might take a detour the next morning, which was exactly what she’d done.

The incident… So, he’d heard about her sketchpad meltdown. Was it just all over the school now? Had Mr. Matthews heard? Had he told her father? Was this why they’d let her have the sleepover, too?

“I’m trying… I swear I am. I try not to let it get to me, to not get upset with them, but I can’t…” she shook her head, looking up to meet his eyes. “It just makes me so angry and it can’t be helped.”

“I know,” he said, and she let out a breath. He might have said something else, might have said he wasn’t angry so she didn’t need to be, and no doubt some of that was in his head now, and it was what he believed for his part, but he’d never say it to her. He understood that this affected her deeply, and he would in no way minimize it, or the way she felt. And to understand that, to be put face to face with another example of the person he was… It made her tear up all over again. How could they not see who he was? How could they not set aside this twisted image of him that they had created for themselves which just kept on bleeding over every bit of their lives? “It’ll get better,” he added after a while. And here the underlying tag to this sentence seemed to say ‘it just has to.’ He had sadness, too, and any amount of other feelings coursing through him since the accident, and to think that some of those had been brought on by her parents… She let out a sigh.

“I should go, don’t want to be late to the diner,” she frowned. _They’ll want to know why…_

Lucas let her go with one more hug, and with a kiss. She moved through her shift, through the day and the one after with the memory of his lips on hers. Being forced from his side only made her that much more aware of how much he meant to her. It made her remember just how much they’d gone through, and how much he was worth fighting for. Well, she would. She would fight for him, for as long as it took.

On Sunday night, her mother stopped by with some clothes and a few other things she might need for school the next day. Maya hadn’t seen her since Friday morning when she’d left for school, and to see her now, the reflex was to feel how much she’d missed her, all the while not knowing how to handle her presence, and the things she’d been left to feel. They hadn’t said much of anything to each other, if they’d said anything at all. After she’d gone, Maya had spent the rest of the evening sitting quietly at Rebecca’s side, as they watched a movie with her mothers. She’d come here to clear her head… but it still felt just as full now.

TO BE CONTINUED


	167. Her Regret For Silence

The week that followed felt like much of the same, except maybe for one part, and that was how a piece of her just felt like it had given up on something. All week long, Monday through Friday, she’d get up in the morning, get ready for school, go to school, sit through her classes, come home, do homework, have dinner, spend a little quiet time with her sisters, and go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat.

She had told herself that she was going to fight for Lucas, and she wanted to. But she was also tired, and whatever fight might have been in her, it just… it wasn’t ready. There was nothing for her to hold on to. Nothing was changing.

The Saturday that followed this monotone week was actually a day off. No diner shift, and after a quick loot in the kitchen for breakfast, she retreated back down into the basement, with the prospect of staying there until lunch. Maybe she’d write a new song for the band. Riley and Nadine had both decreed it was high time they got back to it, even if she couldn’t play her guitar for a while. Even as she sat there with her notebook, trying to come up with lyrics, what came out instead were shapes, and objects, and people… She just started drawing, because it was easier for her to put something on the page that way. Maybe she’d find a way to translate all of it into words later.

Shortly before lunch, she heard the door at the top of the basement steps open, followed by steps she could recognize as her father’s even without looking. She kept on drawing, hunched over her notebook even as she heard him place something on her desk. For a few seconds he kept standing there, maybe looking at her. She kept drawing. Finally, he moved back to the stairs and left. After the door had shut and a few seconds had gone by, she relented, turning her head to see what he’d brought.

Three things. A bag from Ma Maggie’s, which gave off the telltale scent of pancakes. And next to that, her computer… and her phone.

She blinked for a moment. Three weeks she hadn’t had those. She almost didn’t miss them anymore, at least she thought she didn’t, until they were back within her grasp. She looked back to the stairs for a second, even though she knew no one was there, before moving off her bed. The laptop was plugged back in, her phone connected to its charger, and then the bag of food was taken back to her bed, where she sat and quietly ate, paying the two returned items little mind, at least for the time being.

She understood what the return of her confiscated things meant, without anyone having to say it. She wasn’t grounded anymore. Great. So, she was free to roam about once again. Fantastic. But even so she knew this deal did not extend to Lucas. If they’d suddenly decided to let her see him again, they would have said so. The lifting of her grounding instead felt a bit in line with their allowing her to sleep over at Rebecca’s the week before. They dangled something good before her, as though she’d forget about the bad one that continued to keep her glued to the ground.

She spent the afternoon back with her notebook, her drawings, and miraculously, by the time a knock at the basement door called her to dinner – no deliveries this time – she had a brand new song written up and sent to Smackle for her to work her composing magic. She wasn’t sure how it would fare, if it would work for them, but either way she’d sent it.

When she went up the stairs and into the kitchen, there were her parents, and her little sisters. Her father had made dinner. They all sat together, and once they were served, they started to eat. The sounds came from forks, and knives, and glasses, and chewing, and Nellie and Gracie. No one spoke. No one would have known what to say. She hated every second of it. Not the food… that was actually pretty good. Not present company, not at all. She hated the silence. She missed those times where the three of them could sit around the table and see their food start to get cold for how much they had to say to each other. Right now, no matter how hard she tried to think of something so say, she had nothing… nothing good. So, she didn’t say anything.

When she was done eating, she declared she was going out. They didn’t stop her. She wasn’t grounded anymore, so unless they wanted to change their mind on that one…

She walked up her street, breathing deep, breathing out… She reached into her pocket, where she’d stuck her phone before going up to dinner. She texted Lucas, told him she was going to the movies, which was as good as asking him to meet her there, because she knew he’d be on his way there in a minute.

She had to do something. She just had to. She had to do something, to find a way to wake herself up again. She didn’t know how much longer her parents would maintain this ban of theirs, but one thing she knew was that if she didn’t find a way to cope better, she’d never be able to fight for him, and she’d never get to just be herself, to live her life. She hadn’t died in that accident, but she hadn’t really lived since it had happened either. That had to change. She had to live, not just be alive.

TO BE CONTINUED


	168. Her Regret For Absence

When she arrived at the movie theater, she walked in and came to stand in front of the row of posters, showing the movies that were being shown at the moment, trying to decide what she wanted to see. She was at just about the right time to catch the next showing for most of them, but even for all the options she had at her disposal, she was not drawn to any direction in particular. For a few minutes she just kept on standing there, eyes skipping from one poster to the next, with very little thought to it. Then there was a presence at her side, a hand slipped into hers, and with a smile she grasped it back. How was it that something so simple as to feel his hand in hers could send a trill through her heart?

“Not grounded anymore?” Lucas asked.

“Nope,” she shook her head.

“The ban?” he then asked. She grumbled. “Right.”

Maya turned to look at him, found him smiling at her, and she didn’t know how he managed to look like everything was and would be alright, but she did know that it made her feel a bit better, just enough that before long she had remembered there was one of these movies they had talked about going to see back when the trailers had first come out. So that was where they went. He treated her to the tickets, she repaid him with the snacks; like always, like nothing had changed between them.

“They have to know you came to see me right now, don’t they?” Lucas pointed out as they took their seats in the theater.

“Not my problem,” she frowned to herself. She could feel him looking at her and she let out a breath, settling into her seat until she was comfortable, which was as good as saying that once the movie started, if she felt like it, sliding her head down to his shoulder – the good one – would be a breeze.

“Maya…” he spoke, and she shrugged.

“It’s fine. Really.” She didn’t want this to turn into a thing, didn’t want to get caught up in this mess that was her problem with her parents. She just wanted to sit here with her boyfriend, enjoy a movie. And he wasn’t going to push on the subject, she knew he wouldn’t. But she also knew he was concerned for her, and he would continue to be until he could see that she was actually okay and not just saying that she was when she clearly wasn’t. “I just… want all this to… to stop…” she spoke, her voice quiet even in the stillness of the theater, waiting for the movie to start.

He put his arm around her shoulders, and though the movie hadn’t started yet, her head sank to his shoulder. Of course, they’d know she’d run right to him the moment she could. That didn’t put any of them in the clear though, did it? It didn’t pardon them, and it didn’t free her of this ban. This was the kind of thing one really needed to make known with words rather than to leave it to chance.

“Licorice?” he held the bag out to her. Translation: she wanted an evening’s peace, so an evening’s peace she would get. She smiled, pulling a long red vine from the bag and biting a chunk out of it. “How’s it going with the Basket Cases?” he asked.

“Good,” she answered. “Good, I mean… little bit awkward the last few weeks with my guard teacher situation,” she quickly stated, the better to sidestep this venture back into the subject she was trying to ignore. “But otherwise it’s good. Everyone’s improving and, oh, depending how we do, there’s a competition coming in February in New York, and we might get to go.”

“Alright, officially jealous,” he declared, making her chuckle. “Would it be too late to join the team?” he went on, kissing the top of her head.

“Say the word, I’ll bump someone if I have to,” she joked, though they both knew they weren’t about to mess with the lineup they had worked to strengthen together all this time just so he’d get to go with her. They might still be stuck in this mess by then, much as it pained her to imagine it, and that would be an extra distraction he wouldn’t submit her to.

“I could always just come along as a spectator, like that time we all went for Farkle and Smackle’s school thing,” he went on to suggest, and both of them had a pause at this, reminiscing of how it was on that very trip that the two of them, holed up in a diner booth, had shared their very first kiss.

“Would be great if you could,” she agreed.

“Then I’ll see what I can do,” he told her. “How’s your arm doing?”

“I’m starting to get how Dylan ended up with all those things stuck in there by the end. The itch isn’t so bad overall, except if I realize I’m itchy, and then it just drives me nuts… and now I’ve said the ‘I’ word a couple times and I can feel it start to act up,” she frowned. “Quick, I need a distraction…”

“How are the twins? I haven’t seen them since before…” Oh, this she could do. Talking about her sisters was all too easy for her, babbling on and on about any little thing they did, taking and sharing so many pictures and videos her phone would probably physically burst open at some point. She pulled it now, opening up the album marked TWINNING. For a few minutes, she showed him this picture and that one, telling him the story behind each. Most of them in the last few weeks had been taken inside the nursery, or out of the house, when she’d take them somewhere on her own. She’d had to take them with her actual camera, seeing as she didn’t have her phone. One of the first things she’d done after getting it back was to transfer this wealth of content where it belonged. Her parents very rarely featured in the pictures, unless it was either that or miss a shot she wanted to get.

They hadn’t called or texted since she’d left the house, which should have felt like a good thing. Mostly it reminded her that she didn’t know how to interpret what they did or didn’t do anymore. She sighed, and he pulled her a little closer. She happily nestled in closer, too, twisting the licorice around her fingers. She wasn’t thinking about her itch anymore, and if she just sat here like this, being held by him, she wouldn’t have to think about other unpleasant things either, which was really all she could ask for. Just peace, just the two of them.

When the movie started, she allowed herself to stay in that bubble of peace, that she might actually enjoy what she saw, and that she would leave this evening with a stock of these new memories with him. She hadn’t been so at ease in so long however that, somewhere three quarters of the way through the movie, she was falling asleep against his shoulder. But she stuck it out, digging through the remainder of their candy stock. After credits rolled, they got up, walking out to the street and stopping there for a beat.

“How’d you get here?” he asked her.

“Walked until I could catch a bus that was passing.”

“My grandfather drove me,” he revealed. “He said to call him when I was ready to go home. I’m sure he’ll be happy to drive you back, too.” She might have said she’d be fine to go on her own, but the prospect of staying with him a little while longer, of seeing Pappy Joe, won out in the end.

“I really don’t know how much more of this I can take,” she told him as they waited. Much as she would have preferred to leave the entire topic off the table for tonight, here they were, with this moment to themselves, the longest they’d managed to spend, just the two of them, the longest conversation, and this was her boyfriend, and her best friend from Texas… Not getting to talk about this with him would only make her feel worse.

“I know, I… I wish I could make it better… _Can_ I make it better?”

“You already are,” she promised him with a small smile.

“I don’t mean just here, tonight,” he corrected, though of course, she’d known what he meant. “I’ve been keeping my distance, like they want me to, but we’re just ignoring the issue, aren’t we? And I don’t want to make any of it worse than it already is, but I don’t know what else to do.” She could have smacked herself. Here she was, so focused on how horrible she had been feeling, she had sort of forgotten to think he might be having issues, too.

“Well I’m not giving up,” she vowed to him. “And I know you’re not either.” She let out a breath, declaring to herself as much as to him. “We’ll find a way.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	169. His Regret For Time

By mid-December, with near on two months between them and the accident, it seemed like a lot of things should have gotten back as close to normal as they could get. And even though some things _had_ , and some things were getting closer to it, there was something of an unfortunate effect where, because the situation with Maya and him and her parents continued to sit heavily over them, all those small wins felt like they were still only half won. He still had to mind his shoulder, but overall it didn’t pain him near as much as it once had. Maya still had her arm in that cast, though it was clear to look at her that it was getting better, too. The scar on her forehead was still there, would just be a part of her from now on, although it was hardly noticeable, depending how she did her hair.

At school, their teachers seemed to have forgotten about the change to their seating arrangements, either that or they’d stopped bothering to enforce it. When they’d just decided to regain their old seats one day and found no resistance, it was as good as confirmation that, at least here, no one would stand in their way. Unfortunately, this was as far as it went.

He was still not welcome at her house. As far as he could tell, Maya would try and find a way to float the subject every so often, not flat out asking but finding the right words to use in order to test the waters. And no matter the days that passed, the sentence continued to be passed all the same. _Persona non grata_ , that was him. He’d learned the phrase one day and it truly felt like that was what he was. Unacceptable… to them.

In the beginning, in the immediate aftermath to the accident, he was down on himself, full of guilt and fear, he would have thrown himself at their feet, overflowing with apologies. No one could feel worse than he did for what he’d done. Done and almost done. Maya had been instrumental in getting him to be able to find a way out of that headspace. For all he’d put her through, she didn’t blame him one bit. And then his parents… Even they stood by his side, both of them, and he knew from experience that they didn’t do this on principle, not if they didn’t think he deserved it. But her parents…

Now, with the days that had turned to weeks, weeks that had taken them out of October, through November, and into December, there were new feelings, and they were no better.

He wasn’t asking for them to pretend as though none of it had ever happened, no. _He_ was never going to forget that it had happened, was never going to ignore his part in it, and he didn’t expect them to either. But the longer this went on, the more days went by of them continuing to hold up this ban between Maya and him, it left him unable to take it in any other way except to question himself all over again. Was he being too easy on himself? Should he be harder on himself? This _had_ been his fault. He _had_ been at the wheel, he _had_ fallen asleep, he _had_ crashed the car… _had_ nearly killed her… and himself. He was never going to drive again, never again… Even when his shoulder was completely healed… He had always been so careful, but clearly it hadn’t been enough, because look what he’d done…

Mostly he kept these thoughts to himself. He wasn’t going to drag anyone down with him. His parents would only defend him, promise him he didn’t need to let himself get so down. His grandfather would tell him much of the same, in his own way. His friends would try to help, he knew they would, but they’d just get pulled down in this mood, too, and in all likelihood would either go nowhere or make matters worse. This couldn’t be their fight.

But then he had Maya. No matter what, she was and would always be in his camp. This wonderful girl he loved more than anything in the world, who loved him just the same, who believed in him like no one else… He didn’t want to put it on her any more than on the others, especially now. As difficult as things remained, from what he’d been hearing, she was starting to make some headway with her parents, not where he was concerned, but as far as their own relationship as a family.

It was tenuous still, dependent on their not ‘forcing the agenda’ in their ongoing mistrust of him, but it was there. They were talking more, as she’d told him, not spending most of their time quietly sidestepping each other as neither side was willing to relent to the other. He couldn’t jeopardize that for her, wouldn’t.

So, what did that leave him? Short of using his dog Dash as a sounding board, if he didn’t plan to rely too much on getting feedback, there had been one choice left to him, and that was the friend he called his brother. He had been talking to Farkle a lot more, unsure how to approach the subject at first but in the end getting to express a bit more. He didn’t know what good it would do him, but at least he wasn’t keeping it all boxed in anymore. Farkle would do his best to counsel him, but Lucas could see plainly the boy was as stuck as he was. How could he not be? The whole thing was just this endless vortex, turning him around on himself no matter what he did. They didn’t want him near her, and for the time being, they still made the rules. And Maya and he had to follow them.

TO BE CONTINUED


	170. His Regret For Awkward Beats

The last days before Christmas break were being knocked down one by one, and as excited as it would make them all every year, they would still have to do their best to stay focused on classes, on tests and projects, and any number of other things happening in their lives, from work, to families, friends… significant others… This year seemed to be turning into the perfect storm of people leaving town over the holidays to visit family elsewhere. Riley was headed to Philadelphia to see her grandparents, Rebecca was headed to Ireland for the same reason, and then they had just learned today that Nadine and her family were bound for China, even missing the last two days of class.

Zay had been all excited for her, when she’d told them at lunch. It was only the third time she actually went there in all her life. The first time didn’t count for her because she’d been a baby at the time, but the second time she had been nine, and she had been wishing they could go and see it again for so long. When they’d found themselves together in the afternoon, just him and Lucas and Dylan and Asher though, he’d looked all bummed out at the prospect of not spending Christmas with her.

“She’ll be back before New Year’s,” Dylan reminded him, trying to cheer him up.

“And she said she’d bring you back loads of souvenirs,” Asher added. “I think the word she used was 'buckets and buckets.’”

They’d looked to Lucas for another thing that might bring Zay back up, but he had nothing. All he could think was 'at least you’ll get to spend some time with her,' and he didn’t want to be _that_ guy. They must have read it on his face though, because after a moment they lowered their eyes in a sort of apologetic way.

The year before, they had all been in New York, him and Maya and Riley and their families, with Farkle and Smackle, too, once they’d arrived. It had been properly magical, the kind of thing that made him understand so much how New York was a city you could miss when you’d get taken from it. Even back then they had already started to talk about the next Christmas, which was now this Christmas, which might have seemed a bit rushed, but that was just something they did, him and her. Any holiday, any repeated event, they would be having such a good time and they would wonder what the next one would be like. Last year, in New York, they had foreseen an Austin Christmas this time around, and they had told themselves they would make it so painfully local, taking in all the activities their city had to offer, and it would be great fun for all. But now…

“Hey man, if I can do anything to get you guys some Christmas cheer,” Zay clapped his shoulder. “I might not get to spend it with my Little Z, but at least you should get a shot with your… whatever nickname you call her…” Lucas couldn’t help but smirk.

“Yeah, count me in,” Dylan jumped in at this, as any of his friends would have expected him to. “Also unattached.” It wasn’t as though they had known him to be courting anyone, now or before, but the sentiment was appreciated.

“Whatever you need,” Asher nodded and left it at that. A guarded smile told Lucas that at least, even if it was in secret, he would share his Christmas with Ray this year. But he wanted to help anyway if he could, and Lucas was thankful to him, like the others.

He stared at them for a while, unsure of what to say in response. They wanted to help, and he wasn’t dismissing that, but at the same time he could only think about the fact that he would require subterfuge in order to celebrate the holidays with his girlfriend. They had to see that in him, not just today but across the last several weeks following the accident. The three of them more than anyone, his oldest friends, had been a valued circle around him all this time. They saw plainly how it all just weighed on him. They’d do their best to not call attention to it when they could tell he didn’t want to talk about it, instead doing everything in their power to cheer him up.

They’d still go to visit Maya’s house every so often, as they’d always done, though with him not there, with his absence being known to them for what it was, it would be awkward, for them as much as for her, like there was something in the way, something absent and yet drawing their focus to its absence. Most importantly, he had told them, asked them, not to make any sort of fuss or plea to Maya’s parents on his behalf, and they had understood. It wasn’t theirs to fix, and it might only make it worse anyway.

He had to fix it… he needed to… for all of them.

Was it too much to hope for some kind of Christmas miracle? For them to come to their senses just in time? It could happen, maybe… or maybe there was no such thing as miracles and he was letting himself get carried away into fantasy.

“Means a lot, really,” he told his friends finally, reflecting on Christmas. He wasn’t sure if he would actually call on them for this, didn’t want to get them banned too because of him. Maya deserved her friends and that was what they were, not just his. They already had to split and share and it was too much. But whether he’d use them or not, the only thing he could say for sure was that he would do everything in his power to spend even a minute with her on the 25th of December.

TO BE CONTINUED


	171. His Regret For Days Gone

His grandfather had held court as the mall’s Santa Claus for about as long as he could remember. It had been one such fateful visit, with Zay and his mother, back when the pair of them were still very little, which had led to young Lucas Friar discovering much to his dismay that the jolly man was not real. No, that was his grandfather, sure as he saw him and heard him. They’d tried to convince him otherwise, telling him his grandfather was only helping locally, because the real one was too busy making toys, but none of it had stuck with him. The illusion had been shattered, leaving in its place Pappy Joe in a Santa suit. He’s adjusted in time, figuring that just because _he_ knew the truth it didn’t mean everyone else needed to.

This year, maybe in the hopes of giving his grandson a bit of the cheer of the season back (as he’d been going around with barely hidden mopey eyes for weeks), he had recruited him to suit up as one of the assistant elves at the mall with him over the holiday season.

He hadn’t wanted to do it, not at first. This year had not lacked for various degrees of self embarrassments, so the prospect of being stood there for hours on end with kids from his school recognizing him and laughing at him, even if he didn’t tend to pay any mind to that kind of thing, was not exactly appealing to him. So of course, his grandfather had to pull out a speech, pointing out that this job wasn’t about those other guys, no. It was about making all those little ones merry, if for those few minutes they’d spend together, give them some magic… If Maya held the crown for Halloween’s champion, then his grandfather had Christmas in the bag. His light displays put even the Zhu lawn to shame.

So, he said yes. If nothing else, it’d be more money for the trip fund…

He hadn’t specifically told any of his friends that he’d taken the job. But then he’d gotten the costume on for the first time, and it was so silly, he’d ended up taking a picture and sending it around to all of them. No context, no explanation, just him giving an intriguing look… dressed as an elf. Now it was up to them to figure it out. _He_ needed to get out there for his first elf shift.

He had a lot more motivation in the beginning, he was pumped up and ready to go. And it was good, the first few kids had been something else, a learning curve, but he had quickly discovered he wasn’t too bad at playing the elf. He _had_ been told more than once that he was good with kids. As the day would go on though, and as he had to deal with more than one kid in a tantrum, more than one parent in a breakdown, his energy started to feel a little less genuine. He would still put on the show, but it was a performance more than anything. His shoulder was starting to ache.

When he finally had a break, he would disappear back to their ‘changing room’ and sit for a while, breathing out in exhaustion and trying to get his shoulder to quit acting up. Feeling it made him think of the accident. Thinking of the accident made him think of her. Thinking of her reminded him of this dilemma hanging over their heads. He didn’t want his head to go there when he thought about Maya. He wanted to think good things, wanted to think about… Christmas… Christmas with her…

He remembered the first year she’d been in Austin with them. She’d still been finding her way here, hadn’t _wanted_ to be here, missed her friends, her home town… Him and the others, they’d done their best to make her feel better, taking her on the Christmas tour, which was to say they’d invited her to all of their houses, to have some good times with them, with their families… It had done about as well as it would ever do, but it had done _some_ good, so it was something.

The second year had been a very different one. Maya had been doing so much better here, and now Riley was with them, too, which had played a big part in Maya’s change, of course. And they had all decided to do Secret Santa, them and the others. He and Maya had ended up shopping together for their respective picks, and it had been such a wonderful time, none more than the Christmas celebration itself, all of them exchanging gifts, and then, later… He’d pulled her aside, meaning to give her the gift he had gotten for her, outside of the Secret Santa arrangement they’d all made, just because… he’d felt the need to. He’d gotten her the pencils she’d wanted for so long, using the money he’d been putting aside to buy a pocket watch… only to discover _she_ had gotten him a secret gift, too, _she_ had used the money she’d been putting aside for those pencils, in order to get him the watch she knew he wanted. He could still remember the look on her face, the joy… He didn’t understand what it was like to love someone else back then, maybe, but oh he’d felt it. He’d nearly kissed her, too.

By the next year, Christmas number three, he _would_ have kissed her, more than once… and he would be her boyfriend, and she his girlfriend… Their first Christmas as a couple. Shawn had told her he was going to propose to her mother, so all in all, there had been merriment all around. And then, some months later, they’d had what could be called Christmas 3.5, in the middle of a summer heat wave, with Farkle and Smackle along for the ride, the first time they’d gotten to be all of them together even if it wasn’t actually ‘real’ Christmas.

Last year, their fourth Christmas, they’d been in New York… already making plans for this year…

Their fifth Christmas together… except… except…

When he finally emerged from the back and returned to ‘the village,’ his Santa Joe – never breaking character of course – had caught his eye before nodding to the second floor, to the ramp overlooking the village. Stood there and staring back with a smirk was the girl he’d just been thinking about.

TO BE CONTINUED


	172. His Regret For Pretend

It was probably a good thing for him that he had an in with the ‘boss man in red.’ His grandfather gave him a few more minutes before coming back on the clock, so he caught Maya’s eye up on the second level and tipped his head to indicate she should come down and meet him in the back. He watched her scamper off, broken arm kept close to her body so not to hurt herself weaving through shoppers, making it to the escalators that would take her back down to his level. He moved off to the back, sensing some curious little kids staring at the elf just standing there in the open. A few seconds later, there was Maya.

She stopped just inside the door, a furtive grin as she observed him from up close. She pivoted her index finger in the air, which he took to mean she wanted the whole 360 experience. He slowly turned on the spot, in no way awkward about the whole thing, because for what little they’d been able to share lately… and maybe even in spite of that… If it made her happy, he was ready to do just about anything. And this made her happy. He could hear her giggling, snorting, as he completed his stationary revolution.

“Wow… now that’s some Christmas spirit,” she declared, stepping up so she might pick at his costume, make sure it was all good and in place. “You know when I did it, you were pretty good not to tease me too much.”

“What was there to tease, you looked cute,” he shrugged honestly.

“I did, didn’t I?” she smirked, making him laugh.

“Wanted to hear me say it?” he asked, absently pushing her hair behind her ears with his fingers.

“Kind of, yeah,” she put her arms around him, and he leaned down to kiss her.

It would have been so easy to get lost like this. Whatever moment where they got to be alone like this, where they got to hold each other, to kiss… They were a gift, a rare one since the accident, and though they would have much rather not have to run around in secret in order to share these moments, what mattered most for now was for them to get to have them. So, they held to one another, only vaguely aware of the low echo of Christmas music coming from just past the door. After a while it was only this, just arms wrapped around the other, his chin atop her head, which lay against his chest.

“Did you draw string lights on your cast?” he eventually asked, the brief memory of it coming back to him. She pulled back with a nod, holding up her arm for him to see.

“There was space left… and I was bored… and it’s coming off in a couple weeks anyway,” she explained as he inspected her handiwork, the string weaving through the blank spaces – what few there were amid all the signatures – with bulbs sprouting left and right in a multitude of colors. She’d even gotten some glitter on there, so the little bulbs sparkled like they were lit up. “That should totally be a thing, you know? Cast decorator,” she nodded to herself.

“I’d hire you,” he declared and she scoffed.

“You wouldn’t even have to pay. But please don’t let that give you any idea, sort of prefer you in one piece,” she looked back to him, and he could see she’d realized it might have accidentally come out the wrong way, considering _her_ present state and how she’d ended up that way. He just shook it off, knowing she hadn’t meant it that way.

“I’ll do my best,” he promised her. She smiled, kissed him again. “Came here to shop?”

“You sent that picture, I just had to come and see for myself,” she explained, and he just nodded, smirking. “Is it weird that this is strangely working for me?” she asked, and he gave her a look. “Hey, you heard me,” she shrugged, her arms returning to loop around his back. “With the way things are right now, it feels to me like it’s just the time to say things the way they are,” she told him with a brave air that made his heart feel like it was smiling inside his chest.

“Then I’ll keep all that in mind,” he told her, and she grinned.

There was a knock at the door, and he knew it meant they were going to cut things short. He’d have to get back to his job, and she would have to go. It had been easy for a second to forget their current predicament, to forget that they were essentially pretending that all was well, all was as normal as it had always been. It wasn’t, they were well aware.

“Can you stick around a while? I’m supposed to pick up a few things after I get done for the day. I could use a hand.” He could just see the joke form in her head when he said that, and when she held up her one good hand, still grinning, he nodded with a grin of his own. “Good.”

Knowing she was around, he felt something of a second wind come over him as he returned to take his post as one of Santa’s elves, getting one kid after another to have their turn with the jolly man who, for the time being, was absolutely in no way his grandfather… He was Santa Claus… Lucas the elf finished his shift, and then one quick turn into the changing room and he was his old self again, off to shop with his girlfriend, who met him with a snack at the ready, because she was awesome that way. Whatever their Christmas together did or didn’t turn out to be, if he could get as many little moments like this as possible, maybe it’d be enough.

TO BE CONTINUED


	173. His Regret For Losses

The days had gone much faster as they drew up to Christmas. It was the 22nd of December now, and Lucas was caught up in a maelstrom of activity at home. Any big holiday was bound to send his mother in a frenzy, but Christmas was the biggest one for her. He had so many memories of it through the years, seeing her zooming around like she had somehow developed the ability to slow down time, allowing her to accomplish even more. The more guests they were expecting, the more frenzied it got, and this year, oh… All four of her siblings were coming down to the house, which hardly ever happened, with how spread out they were. Out of the city, out of the state, out of the country… But this year they would all be coming in, with their spouses, their children… The house would be packed. And all he could still think about was that Maya wouldn’t be there.

He tried not to keep circling around this one thing, he really did, but knowing that she could and would have been there if not for the accident, that she was both available and wanted to be there but wouldn’t be allowed to go… How could he think about anything else?

One of the worst parts was that, wallowing in this sadness for her not getting to be there, he somehow found his mind did nothing but imagine what that day would be like and conjure up the picture in his head, as real as anything. In his head, naturally, the accident had not happened. There was no scar on her forehead, no cast on her arm. She had a dress on, it was red. Her hair was loose down her back, except for the sides, pinned back. She was always beautiful, but here she seemed to just glow.

She would arrive, and he would get to introduce her to his aunts and uncles and cousins, those who hadn't yet met her. He could just know how all of them would behave, who would ask embarrassing questions, who would tell stories about his childhood just to make him feel awkward… And Maya would listen to all of it, the picture of grace, with a hidden twinge of mischief in the corner of her eye when a story would be shared with her. His littler cousins would be in awe, his older cousins would be curious, or as embarrassing as their parents… one was bound to flirt with her right in front of him…

She would get to partake in the usual family games, and she would be better at them than most of his family, because she really was. At dinner she would tell stories about him, because there was no lack of stories to embarrass him on both sides really… There would be presents after that, and because his mother would have told them his girlfriend was coming, there would be some presents there for her, too. The evening would end in more games, in songs, and more stories… As everyone would head off to their hotel, except the ones who got to use the guest room here, he and Maya would sit a while cuddled on the couch, under the light of the Christmas tree, slowly falling asleep but not quite there by the time her dad would come to pick her up. They would kiss, wishing each other a merry Christmas. Then they would realize they hadn’t exchanged their own presents yet, and they would go to do that, before she’d finally head home…

That was the one he thought of, sometimes, knowing his family was coming. But really, most times, he imagined a smaller gathering. Him, his parents, Pappy Joe… her, and her parents, and the twins. No one was hurt, no one was upset at anyone. It was Christmas, and everyone was happy together… Except they weren’t… And he would have to remember… And it would make him sad all over again.

His mother did her best to involve him in the preparations, no doubt hating to see him in this state, and figuring she might give him something to distract himself. This kind of worked, for a while, but it wouldn’t stick. It would just slide off of him, if given half a chance. And then they’d be starting all over again. But she didn’t give up, no. It wasn’t in Melinda Friar's vocabulary to give up.

His uncles and their kids were set to arrive today, and when the bell rang, he went to open the door. It wasn’t them. It was Zay, who walked right past him and into the kitchen. Lucas could only follow, finding him now being put to work by his mother, who would never turn away the gift of two more able hands. For that, it took a while more – once the two of them got to have a moment alone – before he learned the purpose of his friend’s visit.

“It’s all set,” Zay declared, with a spoon digging at the left-over dessert filling he’d been given to spoil himself with.

“What is?” Lucas asked, watching him scrape at that bowl.

“Christmas, you and the missus,” Zay replied, and Lucas stared at him, speechless for a moment. “I told you I’d take care of you. Besides, since Nadine took off for China, I’ve had nothing else to focus on.”

“What… what did you do?” he asked, not daring to get too hopeful.

“You’ll see. I’m not spoiling the surprise. One thing, you’ll have to be ready to sneak out of here when we give you the signal. Maya knows all about it already, and as soon as she can get away… you’re off to Christmas town.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	174. His Regret For Waiting

Christmas morning at the Friar house felt a lot like a bit more of the night before squeezed into the next day. Lucas had barely gotten any sleep, after a mad day of errands, and preparation, and aunts and uncles, and a gaggle of cousins each madder than the last. Three of those were staying at his house along with their parents and having been out of the country for the past three years, they were now so anxious to partake in some of the things they’d been missing since their departure. They kept him up until well into the early hours, and he finally crashed into bed just before four in the morning. This hardly mattered to his mother, of course, as she then woke him up at six to come down and help her in the kitchen.

He rolled and stuff and chopped like a zombie for about two hours, somehow coming out of it with all limbs intact and not a drop of blood spilled. After this was done, he was just on the verge of being sent off on another task, but thankfully his father took one look at him and freed him for a much-needed nap before everyone showed up all over again for the big brunch.

His second wake up call came in the form of two of his littler cousins trying to pull him out of bed, shouting ‘It’s Christmas! It’s Christmas Lukey!’ He didn’t particularly respond to the nickname that well, though from those two girls he supposed he could give it a pass. It was by some small fortune they hadn’t gone about their ambush by pulling on his bad arm. He had startled awake and pulled away just in time to escape from that. When they saw he was awake, they squealed and ran off laughing out of his room, shouting for Dash, who, if she was a smart dog, would stay good and hidden. A moment later he heard a bark and smirked, reaching under his bed to find her crawling out of her hiding space.

“Welcome to the mad house,” he told her, giving a scratch at her ears.

It was just as well he didn’t need to shower again, or he would have been left prey to any number of family members trying to get into the bathroom while he was in there or passing comments if they happened to see him go back to his room in his towel. As it was, he had to double check he had his door locked before he could hurry up and get dressed. When that was done and he stepped out of his room, he was at all of their mercy.

Of course, the subject of his accident had to come up in conversation sooner or later. He’d been waiting for it to happen all of the day before, and the day before that, and he had just been thankful it hadn’t happened yet, going so far as to foolishly assume it wasn’t going to happen after all. And then, after a few returns on subjects of the day before, his uncle had asked after his car, and Lucas could feel a sort of tense beat fall over the table, the adults in particular, and him most of all. The question may have been aimed toward the status of the car, but to him it felt a lot more angled toward his part in it and the effects of it. It would hardly be a surprise that his being in an accident like that would have made the rounds across his family, which it had. But he thought for sure the whole thing had been pushed into the past by now. Instead, he saw that, with so many of them coming in from out of the city, having only spoken to him briefly on the phone, they now felt they were owed a deeper account, which to him felt a lot more like an interrogation. He’d snuck the briefest of looks to his father.

“The car’s fine, Ted. Good as new and sitting in the garage until such a time as it’s ready to be taken out on the road again. How’s business back home, things picking up yet?” There was no misunderstanding Thomas Friar’s tone, cool and collected but warding off any interest toward his son and the events back in October. Lucas passed another look to his father soon after this, while his uncle Ted talked about his business issues, this one of deep felt gratitude.

As the brunch passed into a more casual distribution of the family gathering, with some sat here, some stood there, some running… all over the place… there remained little to hold Lucas’ attention save for the phone in his pocket. He was waiting for it to vibrate, to give him what he’d been waiting on all day… the signal. Once he got the message, it would be left to him to find an excuse to leave the house for a little while, so he might go and meet Maya. There had been a thought to just simply bring her back here, to let her become part of his family’s festivities as though nothing was wrong, but he knew what would happen if he introduced her into this chaotic burst, and he would barely get the chance to spend any time with her. No, better that they go somewhere else, where they could have their own little Christmas.

He’d mostly figured out a way for him to get out of here, though he knew there were plenty of ways in which it could all go wrong. He didn’t know _when_ the signal would come, so he couldn’t act in consequence, prepare himself. The best he could do was to try and not get overly involved with anything here, the conversations, the games… He had to be able to go without having to explain himself too much, he had to…

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he practically tore a hole in it trying to get the phone out, almost dropped _that_ before finally looking at the screen. _Operation Super Secret Santa is a go!_ He took a deep breath… Maya had found her way out of her house, was on her way to their meeting point. Now it was his turn…

TO BE CONTINUED


	175. His Regret For Brief Encounters

It wasn’t every year they had a Christmas like this… Lucas wasn’t sure if he would have chosen to describe it in the downturned way (“We almost didn’t get to see it together…”) or the positive one (“Nothing was going to keep us from seeing it together…”), but he wasn’t about to waste time trying to decide. He put on his jacket and his boots and he ran off… into the snow.

He was sure she would have seen blizzards in her days, flurries of snow descending upon New York, but for what _he_ had grown to expect, this might as well have been a storm. And… well, maybe positive was winning out after all, because he was just ecstatic. Snow… and Maya was waiting for him.

Lucas didn’t know what her side of the Christmas escape looked like, just what or who would be involved. For her sake, all he wanted to know was that she wouldn’t get into too much trouble for this. He could pretend like it didn’t matter, that this was just simply worth the risk, but he didn’t want to cause her to get into more trouble than she needed to, especially not on his account. Zay and the guys promised that they had worked at this hard enough, taking some counsel from the girls before and after they’d flown off to Philly, and Ireland, and China, from their geniuses over in New York. They said ‘don’t worry,’ and for the sake of the day, he didn’t worry… tried really hard not to worry… too much.

He didn’t know about her escape, but then he didn’t even know about what their friends had set up for them either. He had been told where to go, and that was the extent of it, though he could tell from the way they talked that some form of activity had been set up. Now he kind of had to wonder if the snow, unexpected as it had been, would impede these plans. He arrived at the park, finding the usual path just a bit lost within the untouched snow, until he spotted some foot prints up ahead and… he didn’t know how he knew, but he saw them and he knew they were hers. She was here, somewhere… _Follow the steps…_

Maya stood near their favorite spot. Well, ‘stood’ wasn’t quite it. She stood for a moment, then hopped a foot in front of her into unbroken snow, stood there a moment again, then hopped again. She had her back turned to him at first, didn’t see him. When she made half a spin on a hop, he got to see the look on her face, the pure, unadulterated joy, turning her to a child on the first day of snow. It was a wonder the skies didn’t submit their frost to her more often, for how bright and happy she looked. _He_ certainly would have ripped the clouds open to give her more of those flakes now falling peacefully over her.

He was locked just firmly enough on the side of mesmerized that he didn’t register her crouching, gathering up some of the snow in her hands (well, hand and jacket sleeve really), forming it into a ball, until all of a sudden she turned on her heel, cranked back her arm, and propelled her projectile at him and clocked him right upside the head. He startled and dropped into a crouch, and then he could hear her rolling giggle of a laugh as she came jogging over to him. He snapped out of the surprise in time to stand back up and hold out his arms just as she threw her own around his neck and he held her close, ignoring the snow dripping down the side of his face as he kissed her.

“You are so out of practice, Friar,” she shook her head with a smile.

“Yeah? Try and hit me a second time,” he smirked.

“Is that a challenge?” she asked, and there was no doubt in him that, even working with one hand instead of two, she could have turned him into a snow boyfriend.

“I wouldn’t dream of messing with how beautiful you look right now…” he bypassed the challenge, and, going by the way her face settled into that smile, he knew she had forgotten all about it. “Merry Christmas, Maya.”

“Merry Christmas, Lucas,” she returned, then after a few beats, “Do you know what we’re supposed to do now?”

“Not a clue,” he admitted, as they let go of one another and looked around. “I was just told to come here.”

“Same,” she nodded. “Whatever they all have up their sleeves, I don’t know for sure how much time I have before I have to go back,” she admitted, and the reminder forced them back to reality, just briefly. “It’s not even just the whole thing with my parents, I mean… They’re only four months old, but it’s my sisters’ first Christmas, you know?”

“No, I get it,” he promised. “Well… just in case this is my only chance…” he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small box. “I didn’t wrap it, wasn’t sure where we’d be when I gave it to you.”

“Hey…” she reached into _her_ pocket and also pulled out a small, unwrapped box. He laughed when he saw it. They carefully exchanged the small presents, ‘ideal for sneaking back in with nothing in hand,’ and she nodded for him to open his first, so he did. “It’s… it’s kind of silly,” she started to say as he moved to pull on the lid. “I just wanted you to have a reminder of your own.” Inside the box sat a small medal about an inch across, with a little hoop at the top, like it could go on a keychain, or chain around one’s neck. In large print which took up most of the surface were carved some familiar numbers, which he had inscribed to her cast weeks ago. _24 7 365 (366)._ He felt so oddly moved by it, silly as she’d thought it. He clasped it in his hand, running his thumb over the carvings.

“It’s perfect,” he assured her. “But what are you going to do after they take the cast off your arm?” he asked. In response, she tugged down the zipper of her jacket and reached her index finger to find the chain that hung there pulling an identical medal into view.

“Already took care of it.” Now that he looked close at the two medals, he realized the numbers on hers were identical to the ones on her arm – in his handwriting. And the one given to him was in _hers._ He’d get a chain, so he could wear it around his neck, too. For now, he settled it back into the box, which he placed into his jacket pocket, zippered shut, for fear of it slipping out, before kissing her in thanks.

“Your turn,” he nodded to the box she still held, and so she carefully got to opening it. “I didn’t know what to give you,” he admitted. “All I could think was… how much I’ve missed you these last two months. I think I listened to your songs so much in that time, just to hear your voice… thousands of times.”

“Aww,” Maya smiled. “Too bad I didn’t have some of you,” she told him, even as she opened the box and found it contained… a thumb drive? She looked back up at him, thinking… No… He couldn’t have… “Is this what I think it is?”

“If you promise no one else will get to hear it and you think it’s me, singing your songs, then yeah, it is,” he revealed, and her jaw dropped, raising shut again after a moment like she wished very much that she could listen right here and now and he was quite the sneak to just give her this while she couldn’t even react to it with him.

“I think this just made the list for best Christmases ever,” she whispered, holding the little object in the palm of her hand like it was made of gold. Soon it would be returned to its box and closed away in her pocket, same as her present had been, for safekeeping.

“They’re still not here…” he remarked after she’d thanked him profusely. She looked around, frowning to herself. They couldn’t have forgotten, could they? Then… “Uh… Maya?” he tapped her shoulder, and she turned around and gasped at once.

Coming up the path was a wooden sleigh, pulled by a pair of horses and driven by a young woman neither of them recognized. She, on the other hand, clearly had expected to find them there. She held out a note to them and told them to hop in. Unsure of what was happening, they quickly bent over the note together.

_Slight change of plan due to unexpected weather. Merry Christmas and enjoy the ride!_ And below, all their friends’ names were signed, including those of the ones who were out of town, by Zay’s hand, and then as a post script. _Your driver is Izzy Zvolensky, Sophie’s cousin. She came through last minute!_

“Izzy?” Maya looked up at the girl, who did bear a slight resemblance to their classmate, now that they observed her again. Izzy nodded with a chuckle. Lucas held out his hand to his girlfriend to help her on to the sleigh, and soon they were riding through the park, huddled together, snow sparkling in the sun, and even if they’d both have to scurry back home sooner than they would like, for now it was Christmas and they were together, and the rest didn’t matter.

TO BE CONTINUED


	176. Their Assistance in Sharing

The year bowed out and made way for a new one, near and far inspiring many people to make wishes for what that new year may have brought. Happiness, wealth, health… Two kids in Austin, Texas just wished for things to get back to the way they’d been.

Lucas had gotten back to his family Christmas without detection, spending the rest of his day being dragged around by cousins, though first he had made a trip up to his room, that he might find a chain where he slipped the medal given to him and settle it around his neck, under his shirt, out of sight and question. And Maya had settled back into her baby sisters’ first Christmas, her escapade ignored for what it had been… If either of her parents knew where she’d really been, they never said a thing, and she chose to relegate it to the possibility that they were moving in the right direction and not just some pitied Christmas allowance. Soon as she could retire to her room in the basement for the night, she pulled the thumb drive from her pocket and connected it to her computer. Too impatient to get the audio files on any other device, she reached for her headphones, so she might hear her boyfriend sing out her songs. She didn’t know how long she sat there, smirking to herself as she listened… What an end to this day that was…

On the second day of the new year, she sat in a doctor’s office, where her cast was cracked open and her arm was released from its plaster prison. The relief was such that it could have been years since she’d felt air on her arm instead of a couple months. She managed to hold on to the broken cast, saying she wanted to use it for her art. Whether she’d actually use it like that, well it was for her to know alone.

The first couple days after the cast was removed felt strange. She’d gotten used to living with it, to doing certain things a different way to account for the plaster, and now having to do things the old way again felt more like she was having to learn to do _that,_ like she’d had to learn to live with the cast. At least her arm felt better than it had in the beginning, and if nothing else, for now, the new year did feel like a solid renewal. It had to be good… it had to be…

The return to school was a good one. Save for the scar, which she honestly didn’t mind all that much, there was no sign over her of the accident, fewer eyes on her, leaving only the ones that mattered. She passed Lucas in the hall, and though neither of them was able to stop and talk, she saw the smile on him when he saw her without the cast, the first time he got to see her since Christmas. He looked so glad, and she understood that feeling so well… In return, she pointed to her earbuds, giving him a sly wink so he’d know just what she was listening to. He’d been right, hearing his voice when she couldn’t see him in person, it did help. At least now they’d get to talk, once they got to first period and French class.

When she reached her locker, she was accosted – nay, nearly bowled over – by Riley, who came up to her so suddenly that Maya nearly lost grip on her books. She opened her mouth to ask her what was going on, but then she got a look at her best friend’s face, at the pent-up giddiness just waiting to burst out, and she knew that whatever this was, it was a good thing… if to no one else then to Riley at the least.

“Do I want to know?” Maya smirked, freeing her hands just in case. Riley nodded vigorously. Oh boy… “Does this have to do with school?” Riley shook her head. “Does it have to do with me?” she asked, giving a dramatic air. Another shake of the head. “Nadine?” she guessed next, though at this point she had a good feeling what it was actually about and she was just messing around. Riley didn’t play along.

“Scott Shelby… just asked me out!” she whispered in such a way that felt more like hearing someone shout at the top of their lungs but from distance enough that it only came off as a whisper. Her friend looked like she was ready to burst, even now that the secret was out.

“And you said yes, yeah?” Maya asked, half expecting her to have panicked and said she’d think about it. Thankfully – for all involved – Riley assured her that yes, she had told him yes. “Well… it’s about time,” she declared with a firm nod, then, laughing, she hugged her. “When?”

“Friday night,” Riley told her. “You’ll help me, right?”

“Why, Riley Matthews, that you think you even need to ask, preposterous!” Maya intoned. “The Fairy Godmother brigade will descend upon your house, nice and timely.”

“No, I… Just you and me?” Riley requested, and Maya couldn’t help but feel a tremor of happiness, hugging her best friend of old once again.

“You got it, Honey,” she vowed.

“Thanks, Peaches.”

“Anyway, I have to be there to make sure your dad doesn’t lose it and chase Scott away with a stick.” Riley’s eyes widened at the thought. “Can I be there when you tell him?”

“You’re enjoying this way too much…”

“No, I assure you, I’m enjoying this just the right amount… I’m even a little modest. Now come on,” Maya told her, gathering up her things and leading Riley down the hall toward French class. “Do you know what you want to wear? Want to raid my closet? Go shopping? I am at your disposal, Cinderella…”

TO BE CONTINUED


	177. Their Assistance in Preparation

There had been no moment available to them to explain to Lucas why Riley was so excessively jolly that morning in French class, and once they’d left there, the need to get to other classes superseded the desire to stop and chat, too, so it wasn’t until lunch that they got a chance to say or do anything. In the meantime, Maya had been able to think about a few things, so by the time she hurried out of her fourth period class and made for his, to intercept him, she had something of a plan.

He was just getting out of his class with Dylan, who was nursing a small cut on his thumb from their latest project, when she appeared and caught him by the arm, pulling him to follow until they reached a corner where they could talk in private. He didn’t know how he managed to correctly identify what this was about, specifically that it didn’t have anything to do with their own situation, but either way he listened as she told him about this Riley situation.

Scott Shelby had asked her out on a date, for this coming Friday, and she had said yes. And now she wanted Maya’s help to get ready.

“Well it’s about time,” was his first response.

“Right?” she tapped his arm in agreement.

At the same time, he could sense something in her eyes, not quite sadness, not quite happiness. The happiness was for her friends, naturally. Scott was still relatively new to their circle, but for having gotten to know him in her quiz team, he knew she cared a lot for him now, too. Not only that, she fully approved of the match. Because Riley, well… Lucas hadn’t even met the girl that she had been raised to some kind of deity status in Maya’s stories of her old life back in New York. Maya called him her best friend from Texas, because much as it was true that he was that to her, he hadn’t been the first, and that honor went to the best friend from New York. And Maya was happy for her happiness, always. The sadness though…

Much as their feelings for one another had not changed, and only got stronger if they had, there was no denying the effect of this ban on them. It made those feelings they had, and the expression of it, something they had to keep private almost, couldn’t let anyone see, because it had been forbidden. But he knew, looking at her, she longed to be able to bask in it again, not even to shout about it, but just to get to show what she felt without feeling like she was being watched, and judged. She wanted people to be as happy for her as she was now, for Riley, and for Scott…

“Gonna play Fairy Godmother then?” he asked, trying to draw her back from her bittersweet thoughts. At the words, she just smiled up at him.

“That’s what I said,” she nodded. “And I was wondering if _you_ might play… Fairy Godfather… for Scott,” she explained.

“He does have brothers for that, doesn’t he?” Lucas pointed out at first, in a tone that assured her he wasn’t dismissing the request all the same.

“He does,” she agreed. “But they’re not close to this, not like we are. These are two of our closest friends, and we didn’t actually meddle in this one for once.”

“You knew she liked him when you got him into the Basket Cases, you got him in our group costume Halloween before last,” he reminded her.

“That wasn’t meddling, that was being friendly,” she defended herself, making him chuckle. “Please?” she asked, sidling up to him, turning those big bright eyes of hers up to him like a siren song.

“For the record, I was going to say yes anyway, your magic trick is just bonus,” he insisted, though she just smirked and kissed him. It was the first proper one they had, arms around each other and all, where neither of them had anything, no slings or casts, in the way, and she didn’t think it would matter so much to her, but it did, and to him, too, so much that they briefly got lost in the moment and one another. It was a good thing then that the one who busted them was Asher and not anyone who would have reprimanded them for it, or, worse, gone and told her parents about it.

“Please, guys, think of the children,” Asher joked, getting their attention enough that they pulled apart, laughing off the encounter before moving off to join the others in the cafeteria.

By the time they got there, it seemed the news had already broken out about the date. Everyone was looking at Riley and Scott, sat side by side, and asking them how it had gone, the asking out, and when they would go, and what they would do.

“Alright, alright, you vultures, let them breathe and they might talk,” Maya called to them as she and Lucas and Asher approached. Riley smiled in appreciation. “Just not until we have our food, so hang tight.”

Once they had gone through the line and returned with their trays, taking their seats around the usual table, Scott told the very brief tale of his asking Riley out. It seemed he’d been hoping to do it before the Christmas break, but then when he’d heard she’d be going out of town, he figured it would be better to wait until after. So, he had approached her that morning, carrying what he said to be her Christmas present, delayed as it was. When she had unwrapped the box (some very nice stationary, because he remembered her saying how she’d gotten into writing and receiving letters with her grandparents, and her friends back in New York) an envelope had fallen out, one of the same motif as the set, which she assumed had somehow slipped from the box, until she picked it up and found her name and address were written on it, in Scott’s spidery handwriting. And there was a sheet inside. This, Riley now happily displayed:

_Dear Riley,_

_I hope you don’t mind I borrowed one of these from the set. I wanted to put into words, and in no uncertain terms, that I like you… a lot. Will you go out with me?_

_Nervously yours,_

_Scott Shelby_

_(PS: I think I’ll be sweating now, watching you read this, I apologize in advance.)_

TO BE CONTINUED


	178. Their Assistance in Starts

The week had gone by, the excitement exuded by the pair in wait of their date – primarily Miss Matthews, as though it could be denied – felt like it could have powered the block. Lucas, like any of them, would see her just standing or sitting around at any given time, and then all of a sudden they would see a pause cross her features… like she was remembering what Friday would be, and then… then she just wouldn’t stop smiling.

Scott’s excitement didn’t express itself quite the same way. To be sure, if they were to be measured on what was going on inside their heads, they would be on a level playing field, him and Riley. But from him it came in the form of a strange and overpowering anxiety. He wanted it to be Friday already, like something might go wrong in the meantime and make so that the date didn’t happen, or he thought of the date itself and looked like all he saw in his head were disasters when he wanted to create peace and happiness.

When Lucas had gone to him on Monday, after classes were over, and he had offered him to assist in his preparation for the date, Scott had looked at him like he should have thought of this himself sooner. It was like here was his savior from failure, and he couldn’t get through it without him. Lucas almost felt like seeking out a paper bag and telling him to breathe in it. He had never seen him so worked up like this, but then knowing what it was for, he almost had to appreciate it. He really cared about Riley, about doing right by her, and how could he not encourage that?

So, on Friday afternoon Lucas went off to the Shelby house, in full ‘Fairy Godfather’ mode, as Maya would have called him. All week he had been feeling something, and he wasn’t sure how to explain it. There were Riley and Scott and their ‘variations on anticipation,’ about this first date between them, and when he would see them he’d just get this sense of… maybe a bit of that bittersweet feeling he’d been seeing in Maya.

All of this, it was brand new for them, all these possibilities open to them. On both ends, they had been receiving call after call, friends chiming in on how it had taken them long enough to get here. Everyone was so happy for them. From what he’d been seeing, even Hurricane Dad was keeping it fairly together at school, not giving Scott any trouble for having asked his daughter out. If anything, he seemed pleased. And Lucas saw all this and… he just thought about these last few months, going around, feeling like he wasn’t allowed to show how he felt about Maya, as though anyone wouldn’t know by now. But then, after the accident…

No one really knew the circumstances of the accident, not here. It was a small favor that he’d been allowed that much. They knew he’d been driving, but for all they knew he could have been entirely blameless, like he might have swerved to spare an animal that ran into the road. And some days he felt like a fraud because of it. Maya didn’t blame him, but her parents sure did, and there was no pretending like he didn’t blame himself in some place in his heart. How would they all look at him if they knew?

He’d fall into that train of thought every so often, and he would just have to find a way to stop and shake out of it. When he got out of his last class on Friday, he definitely needed to leave that spirit far away.

When they left for the Shelby house, they did so in Julianne’s car, and Lucas tried very hard not to chuckle at how awkward Scott looked, getting playfully teased by his big sister about this first date of his. By the time the car was just nearly stopped, Lucas fully expected his friend to throw the door open and run off to get away from her.

Once they were up in his room, Scott opened his closet and started rummaging through it for a while as Lucas just stood there behind him, watching, waiting. Maya had asked if he might help Scott, but he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do except make sure he didn’t leave for this date looking weird.

The first thing Scott pulled out was a suit. Lucas only had time to have a very small reaction before he was shoving it back to rejoin the rest of the clothes.

“Seriously, you kind of need to breathe right now,” Lucas told him.

“Right, no, yeah, you’re right, I am… I will,” Scott promised, and on his second try came away with something much better suited, still nice and clean, but not an actual suit.

All in all, it had been a short task. Once Scott was changed, he just had to fix his hair again, and then he was set. The only other thing Lucas could do was not about preparing him physically.

“Hey, it’s going to be great, you know?” Lucas assured him. “It feels big right now, because it’s the first one, but… You’re going to go out there now, and you’re going to take out the girl you’ve wanted to take out all this time, and she’ll be as anxious as you. When Maya and I first went out, we went on a picnic in the park… and then it started to rain, like a lot. We had to run for cover, and then we went to the museum and they wouldn’t let us through because of how we looked after getting out of the rain. But none of that mattered, because I wanted to be with her and she wanted to be with me. That’s all,” he shrugged. “The rest, none of it matters so much… just that you got to be there together.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	179. Their Assistance in Peace

All week, Maya had been finding herself thinking back to the old days, back in New York, with her and Riley and Farkle. Primarily she thought about those times where the prospect of dating came about. Riley, eternally bound to be a romantic with the parents she’d had, had long imagined someone coming along to sweep her off her feet. Maya, for her part, hadn’t even been thinking about it all that much, though again, with her own parental situation, how could anyone blame her? She would entertain her friend’s thoughts, for no other reason than… well, it was entertaining.

Then she’d moved to Austin, four and a half years ago. And she’d met Lucas. And before she knew it… he was her world… All of a sudden she understood all those fancies Riley would go off on, about how her heart would flutter at the mere idea of that one boy, about how she would look into his eyes and feel loved, about how she foresaw this great future between them…

It hadn’t been a simple road from one end to the other, and looking back on it now she might have been able to say that some part of her had always known they would make it, but if it was there, it was small and hidden, trapped underneath layers of missing home, being thrown into a place she didn’t know, filled with strangers, with finding her way, finding friends… and then once she’d started to admit to herself how she felt for him, oh, that was barely scratching the surface, wasn’t it? The wait before she’d finally allowed herself to take that leap had felt so long at the time, and yet they had now been a couple for more than twice that time. Two years and some months now, with ups and downs, but always with him… And then the accident…

Friday morning, when she’d gotten into the car with Nadine and Riley, she could see the first trying so hard not to look like she’d been having her ear talked off, while the second looked like the prospect of those next hours in class was going to be the end of her. Maya had come to Austin and met Lucas and made her way toward their being a couple, but Riley… Riley, to her knowledge – which was to say, she knew all there was to know – was going on her very first date ever. If little Maya had known that she would precede her romantic nut of a friend in that department by two whole years, she would have never believed it.

Maya had spent the day, as she always did, weaving in and out of Riley’s presence. First period together, second not, then together again for third, and then separated for fourth before coming together again at lunch, skipping fifth and sixth to be reunited in seventh, and after eighth brought the end of the day, there she was again. On this particular day, being aware of what the end of the day would bring, it was like checking in on a lit fuse, getting closer and closer to its moment of explosion.

Finally, they were on their way back to the Matthews house. Maya felt like she was thrown back into one of her Friday night Say Yes to the Dress marathons with her mother for how many dresses Riley had tried on and always either said no or ‘I’m not sure.’ After perusing Riley’s closet, and Maya’s own, and even making a trip to Nadine’s, and Rebecca’s, they had ended up at the mall the previous afternoon. Showing the long-practiced patience she held, Maya had managed to navigate Riley toward finding something she was happy with. She’d been so relieved that this was over that she’d bought the dress for her as a gift. Truth be told, it was a tactic, knowing that, if Riley had bought it herself, Maya might have shown up at her house on Friday to find she’d already gone and exchanged it once or twice. Because Maya had bought it for her, well, she’d feel bound to wear it no matter what.

Mr. Matthews was still at school by the time the girls got to the house, which was probably just as well. Already they had to contend with keeping Auggie and his friends away, and Mrs. Matthews hovering nearby, too. Riley had wanted it to be just the two of them, and that was what it would be. Riley changed into the new dress – which still seemed to hold her genuine interest – and then was instructed to sit, so Maya could see to her hair and makeup.

“Will it make your arm hurt?” she asked, as Maya set to brushing her hair.

“Nothing you need to worry about, now sit up straight and don’t move.” Her arm did sort of give off some discomfort from time to time, although it was nothing she couldn’t ignore. She was still getting used to everything without the cast… she hadn’t even dared try her guitar just yet.

Riley’s hair was set, and then a light touch of makeup. Finishing touches were given, shoes and whatnot, and then Maya stood back to observe the finished look. Would it be weird if she started crying? Just a bit?

“Are you crying?” Riley asked.

“Not at all,” Maya lied.

“Okay, because if you cry then I…”

“No, not crying,” Maya cut her off. “I think I got powder in my eyes when I was doing your face,” she quickly lied, and that seemed to work for Riley. While the girl turned to look at herself in the mirror, Maya hurried to brush the traitorous tears away, blinking a few times to settle everything. “When you get back, you tell me all about it, promise?” She was spending the night, of course. Riley turned back to her, nodding her promise before moving to hug her best friend.

TO BE CONTINUED


	180. Their Assistance in Arrivals

The wait until Scott’s arrival, once Riley had been prepared, felt like an exercise in guarding a cake from eager fingers, which almost felt wrong as an analogy, but really was the only image Maya could come up with. Riley, no doubt due to nerves alone, to excitement, seemed unable to sit still, or stop fussing at anything from her clothes to her hair or makeup, and Maya consistently had to remind her she looked perfect just as she was, short of batting her hand away.

“The date’s going to be great, you know?” Maya tried to calm her down. Riley looked at her.

“Oh, I’m not worried about the date,” she confessed. “Just there might not be much of a date if… well, my mom and dad and…” she gestured, and now Maya could see her point. She’d had similar butterflies in _her_ stomach, the first time Lucas had come to pick her up for a date.

“Right…” she breathed, setting herself to think about how to appease her friend’s nerves before it was too late. Lucas had already texted her to inform her that Scott was on his way to Riley’s to pick her up, so he would be here any minute. Thinking about him, Maya thought of their friends, too, somehow, and that gave her an idea. She smiled.

“What?” Riley asked, hesitant.

“I’ve got you,” Maya promised, and then she told her how they might sidestep the parental inquiry. At once Riley smiled and nodded, and the ‘cake’ lived to make it out the door.

They sat in wait in Riley’s room, finding it in them to take a brief look at their respective homework assignments for the weekend, until they heard the doorbell, and they scrambled into action. For Riley, this meant staying right where she was, until she’d be called, but for Maya it meant hurrying out of the room and down the stairs before planting herself in just the right spot. There, she pulled out her phone and opened the camera, set it to film.

“What are you doing?” Topanga asked, coming from the kitchen, as Cory was already moving to open the door.

“Making memories,” Maya declared with a grin. “The others really wanted to see this moment, too,” she explained, sparing an innocent look to her teacher, who briefly looked like he didn’t know how to stand anymore. Just like that, he had been defused. She almost expected him to launch into some bad acting once he opened that door.

“Scott… welcome, come on in,” Mr. Matthews intoned, and Maya bit into her lower lip not to laugh at how he looked so very aware of the camera. Scott took a couple steps through the door, looking about as nervous as she would have known him to be, giving a nod of thanks to the man, before spotting her standing there. She waved at him silently, and when he saw the camera, he seemed to grasp what she was doing and went through a calming beat of his own, smiling and nodding his head in greeting.

“Riley, Scott is here!” Topanga called up the stairs. Maya turned to aim the camera at the stairs.

“Coming!” they heard from above, before Riley appeared, making her way down. Maya held on her for a few seconds, to capture her look, before swinging back to Scott at the door, to get his reaction. He looked properly gobsmacked, and Maya had to feel a little proud of her work… and of the girl coming down the stairs, too. She moved back for a bit, the better to get both of them in the shot as Riley made it down the stairs and approached the boy at the door, stepping forward again even as the gap between them reduced to a couple of feet. “Hi,” Riley smiled.

“Hi,” Scott repeated, like the power of speech was just jammed back into him. Maya could have laughed for how awkwardly wonderful this was. She could tell he wanted to say how great she looked, but hesitated with her parents there, only to stop and realize his not saying anything might have been bad, too. “You look amazing…” he finally said, thankfully sounding as genuine as could be, and not prompted by his audience.

“You do, too,” Riley replied, in her case punctuating the comment with a tip of the head easily translated as ‘we should get out of here.’ “I’ll be home on time,” she told her parents, sparing Maya a look overflowing with gratitude.

“Bring me back a treat?” she smirked, and it made Riley and Scott laugh before they waved to the three of them and stepped out the door. Maya went up to film them all the way off to the street before hitting stop and pocketing her phone. The door was shut, and she turned back to Riley’s parents. “So… movie?”

The video might in time have made the rounds among their friends, but for tonight she only sent it to one person, her partner in fairy godparenting for the night. She was curious to know how it had gone for him, what he’d done or said to get that bundle of nerves that was Scott Shelby all the way to the Matthews’ door. Lucas soon replied with many a laughing emoji. Then he asked what she was up to until ‘the kids’ came home. She informed him that she would be watching a movie with Riley’s parents. She didn’t add how she wished he was there with her, too, but it was fully implied. Had it been anyone else’s house, she might have gotten away with it, but she doubted even then she would have taken the risk. So instead she settled in, tugging Auggie Matthews to sit by her once he came to join them, and the wait for Riley’s return began.

TO BE CONTINUED


	181. Their Assistance in Fondness

Movie night came delayed almost immediately, with a debate she really should have seen coming, having been part of many a movie night at the Matthews house. It was an issue by no means isolated to her and her friends that the selection of the movie could be something of a long process. Usually, this would go differently because Riley would be there, too, and they would tag team, soon resolving the issue… usually in their favor. But Riley _wasn’t_ here this time, and as she watched the three remaining Matthews family members, there were really two options open to her. The first was to get involved, as she had in the past… or to use this moment to her advantage.

Before long, she got back up the stairs, telling the others – whether they listened or not – that she was going to the bathroom. She _did_ go into that room, though once she’d closed and locked the door she remained standing, leaning against the sink as she took out her phone and put in the call to Lucas. He answered so fast, he was either messing around on his phone or he’d been expecting this call… Somehow, she was 99% sure it was the second thing.

“They can’t decide?” he asked.

“They’re worse than Zay and Asher,” she laughed, keeping her voice just above a whisper, and he laughed in response. Letting out a breath, she said the thing she’d only allowed herself to think. “I wish you were here…”

“Me too,” he promised. “What are the odds this won’t get back to your parents, if Riley’s let me in?”

She didn’t want to have to think about it like that, even if her present situation left her no choice. On the one hand, Mr. & Mrs. Matthews might simply say no, supporting her parents’ decision. On the other, they could let Lucas come, but then what? Sure, this was their house, and they could invite whoever they wanted to invite, but then what if it ended up making it so that they started arguing with _her_ parents, too, and then wouldn’t let her go to Riley’s either, because they’d let him in? It all felt ridiculous to even think that it could get to that, but at this point, it was almost too close to reality not to be considered.

When she sighed, at a loss for a response, she knew he understood. She wanted to take the chance… but like a lot of things they had or hadn’t done since the accident, she wasn’t as much of a risk taker as she might have been, because hanging in the balance was her ability to continue seeing him, in what capacities she still had. They both had to make sacrifices. So, he abandoned the subject, and he redirected the conversation to ‘current events.’

“Nice little diversion there with the video,” he complimented her, and she smiled.

“You know what’s crazy about all this? My parents, and hers, and yours… They were all our age once, they probably had their share of parents turning into _that_ when _they_ started going on dates, started bringing boyfriends and girlfriends around… and they would have felt the same way about it as we do. Is it really that impossible for people to not turn into that when they have kids? Like how does that even happen?” She knew she was pulling on her frustrations over her parents more than anything, but it was still something she didn’t understand, how they could go from one thing to the other… almost felt hypocritical.

“I don’t know, guess we’ll find out some day,” he replied casually.

“Hey, if I’m ever like that with _our_ kids, please remind me of this moment, this year…” She heard him chuckle, and after a pause, she realized as he had what they had both been imagining all of a sudden. It wasn’t that she’d so overtly thought about it all enough to start thinking about how many, and what their names would be, but she _did_ think about the future sometimes, and he was always there, and they were always a family, whether she acknowledged this certainty or not, as she’d done, as they’d both done now.

“Can I get that on paper?” he teased her, and she just grinned, standing alone in that bathroom.

“Triplicates, initials everywhere,” she followed up. “Hey, sometime next week, is there a day where I could go to your house after school?” She hadn’t really gone since the accident. _His_ parents didn’t forbid her being there, though on the very rare occasions where she had gone, it had usually felt like she wasn’t supposed to be there, much as it pained her.

“Depends if you want to come when my parents won’t be there or not,” he told her. “If you do, then that’d be Wednesday. Did you have something in mind?”

“Kind of. I… I need to start practicing with my guitar again, we’re booked over at Chubbie’s again in a few weeks, I need to be able to play, and I haven’t since October, and after the break, the cast…” She’d been made shy for it, shy over what it might sound like after all this time. She didn’t want to mention it with the other girls in the band, but with him…

“Wednesday then,” he suggested, understanding.

“Thanks,” she told him, before remembering where she was. “I should go. Either they’ve decided, or they’re about to go into phase two…”

“What’s phase two?” he asked, curious.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know. I don’t think you could sit in history class and look at our teacher the same way again.”

“Right. Well… let me know how things go with Riley and Scott, okay?”

“I will… I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

After hanging up, Maya stood there for a few moments, breathing slowly, allowing the conversation to remain something connected to her a little while longer before finally opening the door and returning downstairs to see how much closer they were to movie night.

TO BE CONTINUED


	182. Their Assistance in Returns

The movie had been picked, thankfully leaving no one to lick wounds for having been defeated in their choice, and so the four of them had settled in and watched it. Whether any of them managed not to focus on it more than on the thought of one Riley Matthews off on her first proper date, well… That depended on the person, and _they_ weren’t about to mention how little or how much they did or didn’t think about it. Maya could venture Mr. & Mrs. Matthews were both willing themselves not to focus too closely on their daughter’s date, but every so often they would waver back to the subject, until they could get themselves back on track. And Auggie… Well, he was blissfully unbothered really. Maya thought about her best friend, too, but more for the sake of thinking how much of a good time she could be having. For her sake, she really hoped things didn’t end up the way _her_ first date with Lucas had ended up. They’d pulled through with some positivity despite the unfortunate parts, but still… She wouldn’t wish it on those two.

The way she’d calculated it once she knew what movie they were watching, and what time they were starting, by the time it was over – and it had just ended now – Riley should have been home any minute. Maya was quick to pull Auggie into conversation about what he thought of the movie, before calling on his parents and _their_ thoughts, too. It was that or leaving them to stand around and look at the clock until Riley showed up. She was lucky – they both were, in their own way – that she arrived all of four minutes after the movie had ended.

As she came through the door, she was waving to Scott’s retreating form, her face full of smiles. And after she shut the door, she just stood there, in her own private ‘happy’ bubble for a few moments more before turning her head to find the four of them staring back at her. Maya, stood further back than the rest, made a motion toward the stairs, and Riley replied at once.

“Maya, can you come and help me change?”

“Happily!” she intoned, moving past the others and leaving her popcorn bowl in the capable hands of Auggie Matthews. His and Riley’s parents clearly wanted to know how the date went – as though the look on her face didn’t tell it all plainly – but they weren’t about to push on the subject, were they? As Maya ushered her friend up the stairs, she got to wondering if this situation between _her_ and her parents had turned into some kind of cautionary tale for Cory and Topanga, in how they might go about interacting with Riley and her burgeoning relationship with Scott Shelby.

Walking into Riley’s room, Maya had quickly turned and shut the door, turning again to find her friend twirling on her heel and letting herself fall back on to her bed. Maya chuckled, moving to stand within Riley’s line of sight.

“That good, huh?” she asked, taking in the beaming smile on the other girl’s face. When she didn’t reply, Maya pounced on to the bed, deftly sparing Riley from being crushed, though of course she still screeched in surprise before laughing. “Tell me, come on,” Maya poked her, repeatedly.

“Okay, okay, okay!” Riley laughed on.

“Good, so from the start. Spare no detail, I _will_ know if you do,” Maya ‘warned.’ “He came to get you, I valiantly spared the both of you from parental shaming…”

“Can I tell it?” Riley turned her head to look at her.

“Right, sorry, go.”

“He came to get me… you valiantly spared the both of us from parental shaming…” Riley started.

“Shows how humble I am,” Maya shrugged, getting a squint from Riley. “Keep telling it,” Maya insisted, nudging her with her foot.

“I had no idea where we were going. All he’d said before was he thought we should start with a classic… dinner and a movie.”

“Tried and true combo,” Maya nodded. “What restaurant did he take you to?”

“His house,” Riley told her, and Maya looked at her, confused. “He cooked,” Riley went on, and Maya’s eyes went wide.

“He _what_?” she sputtered, making Riley laugh again. “Was it any good? What did he make?” In response, Riley pulled out her phone and opened her pictures to one she’d snapped of her plate before she’d started eating. Maya snatched the phone out of her hand, sitting up at once. “For real?”

“He wanted to show me, because he doesn’t really talk about how much he’s into all of that, cooking, and baking, but he’s _really_ into it. He knows so much, he told me about how he made each thing, and it made me feel like I could see into his head. I got why he liked it so much, you know?” After a moment, her face grew vaguely concerned. “Wait, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything…”

“Said what?” Maya asked, as good as telling her she would ‘forget’ it so long as she didn’t know that it was open to collective knowledge. “Now, tell me there’s dessert on here, too…” she pointed to the phone.

“Well I’m not there yet,” Riley pointed out, before telling her about the actual dinner, and some of what they’d talked about, when they weren’t talking about the cooking thing. To listen to her best friend talk, Maya could only keep on smiling, seeing how happy she was. When they finally came to the dessert and she was presented with the other picture, Maya was very near compelled to insist their young Shelby friend be put in charge of any and all future dessert endeavors.

“What happened after you guys finished eating?”

“Well, we knew we were kind of on a clock, and getting to the movie theater would just lose us time… He knew it, too, because when we went down into the basement… He’d moved things around, decorated a bit, so it looked like we were at the theater. He let me pick the movie, and then we sat there next to each other… He held my hand,” Riley added in a bit of a whisper. Maya bit back a laugh, imagining the tumble of feelings happening in her head the entire time.

“How was the movie?” she asked, with a good feeling of the answer she’d get. Riley opened her mouth to answer, but almost right away her face retreated into a sea of confusion. As Maya had suspected, the whole time Scott had been holding her hand, she might have been staring at the screen, but nothing registered in her mind enough for her to say what she thought of the movie itself.

“I-it was good… funny…” she trailed off, and Maya giggled. “After it was over, we had a little bit more time before he had to get me back here though, so we just sat there, and I asked him more about cooking. After a while, we saw the time and we’d gone a bit over. Julianne drove us over though, so… yeah…” Maya had a good feeling the ‘yeah’ referred to two things, the first being that they’d made it back on time for curfew… the other being that, with his sister within eyeshot, he hadn’t dared try to kiss Riley. The small smile that followed also added a third thing, and that was that – even if he _hadn’t_ kissed her – she could see that he had very much wanted to.

“So… is date number two penciled in?” Maya asked her with a grin, locking her in a side hug.

“Next week,” Riley replied, her cheeks looking decidedly pink.

“Will you be requiring your fairy godmother again?”

“You know I will.” When Maya didn’t reply for a few seconds, Riley ‘sighed.’ “I’ll ask Scott if he’ll bake you something.”

“I’m thinking something glittery next time,” the fairy godmother immediately launched into her ‘vision.’ “Not like a disco ball… but maybe like a disco ball…” Riley could only burst out laughing at that, hugging her best friend at the same time.

They spent the rest of the time before turning in for the night with Maya’s relaying the tale of her own evening, from the sheer struggle of picking the movie to her covert conversation with Lucas after she’d escaped from that madness. Riley was of a mind that Maya _could_ have asked to invite him over for the movie and her parents would have said yes, but here again Maya explained her reasons for not trying it, and Riley understood well enough.

Riley had fallen asleep before her, and so it left Maya to stare up at the ceiling for a while, thinking about the night, about how happy she was, for both Riley _and_ Scott, and how… how she couldn’t even pretend like a part of her wasn’t the tiniest bit envious of what they’d been able to have on that night.

TO BE CONTINUED


	183. Her Journey to Progress

The weeks carrying them into February had been a bit strange for Maya. To see the blossoming romance between her best friend from New York and Scott Shelby was just… it was… What could she even say? On the one hand, she was happy for her, for both of them. They had spent all this time entertaining their feelings for the other in secret – as successfully or unsuccessfully as they might believe they kept that secret – and now it was all out in the open, and it was reciprocated, and that… that was a thrilling feeling like none other. Maya remembered that feeling very well, among the roots of her relationship with Lucas.

And then, while she could still feel happy for her friends… To see the pair of them in the throes of that whole new reality, it was just impossible for her _not_ to feel this seed of jealousy growing inside her. There was nothing of spite in it, nothing that would make her want to harm their happiness, but it would still make her feel… clouded over, and sad, and then she’d think… _Why can’t that be us?_ And then she would get to school, and he would be there, and he would smile at her, and she’d feel like her burnt heart had just been soothed with the wave of his presence.

Nothing had changed on their situation. Her parents had not budged, didn’t look as though they were getting any closer to some change either, which was plenty frustrating on its own without having to look at how much time had now passed, nearly four months of it, and being faced with the very real terror that they might never actually change their minds. Sure, one day she wouldn’t be living at home and then she could do whatever she wanted, but it wasn’t just about her home, was it? So long as they wouldn’t accept him again… the three of them had a problem. What if they never accepted him, and that would just be their lives from now on, forever?

She didn’t know why she kept putting herself through that lot of defeatist thinking, but she did. And then after a while she would just shake her head at herself, tell herself it wouldn’t… it wouldn’t… it just couldn’t… Whether she actually believed herself when she thought this was anyone’s guess, but at least it made her feel good for a while.

Of course, with February came the burst of heart-shaped everything, and red and pink and white everything, all around them. Valentine’s Day… Riley had told her that she and Scott had agreed not to go _too_ over the top, that they’d only been dating a few weeks now and didn’t want to put too much pressure on one another. Maya had heard these words, and still she could say with near certainty that, come February 14th, the two of them would be sickeningly/sweetly breaking that vow.

And then the universe gave her a break.

They’d all been waiting to see for sure whether the Basket Cases would or wouldn’t get to go to compete in New York in February, and then finally the word had come down… They were in! They would be flying off, the four of them and Mr. Matthews… on February 12th, gone for a week. It made for a cluster of disappointed couples, Riley being away from Scott, Nadine from Zay, Rebecca from Joey, of course Mr. Matthews from Mrs. Matthews… and then her and banned cowboy…

It wasn’t as though she was glad to be away from him at that time any more or less than the others, but knowing it would all have involved some more sneaking around on both their parts, which would have been very easily seen through, then maybe it was just as well. Anyway, Lucas had already promised her they would do something on another day, and it wouldn’t matter that it wasn’t actually February 14th.

It was the night before departure now. Maya was still working over her suitcase, having switched to a bigger one after seeing the number of things her non-traveling friends (and some parents) had put into her care to bring over to Farkle and Smackle once she got to New York. All these, as well as her own belongings, were now strewn about the basement, and it was getting to be chaos… She’d never be free.

Finally, she’d called Nadine on to the case. If anyone was going to bring organization into her life right now, it would be her. So, she called, and Nadine assured her she’d be there before long. Not ten minutes later, she was bounding down the steps of the basement to find her blond friend sat on the ground with a forlorn look on her face.

“Wow, have you never packed a suitcase before?” was Nadine’s greeting, quickly met with a frown. “I mean…” Nadine chuckled, coming down to join her, “Let’s see where to start.”

Slowly but surely, the mess was folded and inserted into the suitcase, and then with a very satisfying click… it was shut and rolled to sit near the steps, after which the two girls sat with shared relief, Maya on her bed, Nadine on the desk chair, twisting left and right and back again.

“Should have just told you to bring your stuff over, then you could spend the night and head off with us in the morning,” Maya sighed.

“Done and done,” Nadine revealed with a triumphant grin, making her friend laugh before reaching to hug her/pull her down in a pile of squeals. “Crushing… air…” Nadine dramatically intoned in a ‘choked’ voice, with little to help make it sound genuine as she couldn’t stop herself laughing.

“Promise me something?” Maya asked her. “When we’re out there, don’t let me get too…”

“Mopey?” Nadine guessed at once, and Maya gave a short nod. “No worries, I’ve got you.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	184. Her Journey to Part

Somehow the others had managed to set up a going away party for the team without any of them knowing, not even her. She chose to write it off as her having been too focused on preparing to actually notice that they might have been doing anything sneaky. And then the afternoon before they were set to leave, hours before Maya’s ‘distress call’ to Nadine to assist with her suitcase, she’d been summoned to Asher’s house, on the excuse that her friend wanted to have her listen to something, only to show up and be surprised with decorations, and food, and friends…

It wasn’t going to be some wild sort of party, well into the evening. Some of them _may_ have been flying off to New York the next day, but the rest of them still had school. Still, they couldn’t have asked for anything better than what they got.

Maya, for her part, tried very much to involve herself with everyone who was there, and she did, for a while, but then she knew it wouldn’t hold. Here she was, not at school, just hanging with her friends, and with Lucas… Lucas who she wouldn’t see for the whole week to come. Sure, she didn’t get to see him the same as she used to before the accident here, but this would be different, and it felt different, and when she’d shown up at Asher’s house and seen him there, it felt like they were back to the time before she’d gone off to Europe with her parents again, facing the prospect of the separation… it made her heart feel a bit twisted in her chest.

So, much as she was there, hanging out with the others, soon, she pulled him aside, into the garage. Before she got to say anything, he had his arms around her, and she breathed out, hugging him back. Of course, he was feeling it, too. It was just something in them, always, wasn’t it? Being apart from one another… it just hurt, like they weren’t supposed to be, even when it was just this, just a trip.

“Would I be a really bad team player if I just didn’t go?” she asked, breathing deep. His hands running up and down her back, his cheek pressed to the top of her head, it wasn’t too far off from saying she genuinely meant what she’d just asked in jest.

“Would I be a really bad supporter if I just kept you here?” he countered, and she smiled. She could hear his heart, beating against her ear, and she never wanted to move.

If it wasn’t for the situation with him and her parents, she would have asked him to look in on her sisters, and on the dogs, while she was away, as she’d done with Riley. She knew he would have done it without even a moment’s consideration. She wasn’t going to think about that though, not here, not now. Here and now was about holding him, feeling him near, stocking up on that good feeling before she’d have none of it for the week to follow.

She couldn’t say how long they just stood there, holding to one another, like a dance without music… without much movement either, except for breath and beating hearts and hands grazing at backs. Easily ten minutes, maybe twice as much, before the hold had adjusted into a lingering kiss, which in itself held no awareness of time or space. Just the two of them, in a world of their making.

“Will you write me letters again?” he asked, and she chuckled.

“Do you want me to?” He nodded. “Then I will. Shouldn’t take as long for them to get here… You have to write, too,” she decided. “Not responses, just… tell me what’s happening back here,” she shrugged. They could just have easily called each other on Skype, as they would with Farkle and Smackle, but this would be different, it would be some special attention taken by the both of them, and that really felt like the thing to do.

“And you… you need to put our problem out of your head all this week, okay? Just leave it here, down in your basement. Go out there and show them what the Basket Cases are made of,” he instructed, looking her in the eye, and she smiled, tipping her head in understanding. She knew it was what she needed to do, though she wasn’t sure that she could do it, when it persisted to exist in her head like a boulder. But he knew it as well as she did… and that extra bit of support made her want to succeed even more.

“One thing…” she asked, as the thought came to her. “Think I could have…” She didn’t even need to finish the sentence; he knew what she meant to ask already. He reached to his pocket, unclipped something from his belt loop, and produced the pocket watch on its chain, laying it in her open hand. She closed her fingers over it, laying her head back to his chest, before he pulled his arms around her again. Soon they’d have to go back to rejoin the others, who were bound to have noticed their absence by now and might be getting some ideas they didn’t need them having. But not yet… not yet… For now, she still needed his arms, his heartbeat… and he still needed her, small and nestled in his embrace, the scent of her, the warmth of her… until she’d be returned, and that week apart would be over.

TO BE CONTINUED


	185. Her Journey to Depart

The next morning was an early one in the Hunter-Hart house, from Katy and Shawn upstairs, seeing to the twins and to general preparations for the drive to the airport, down to the girls awakening in the basement and hurrying to get dressed, before moving up the stairs to grab breakfast. Maya confirmed she had not forgotten to pack anything, and before long they were packing into the car, after she had said goodbye to her little sisters, who were being left with their neighbor. They always seemed to be growing up on her, and Maya almost imagined returning, a week from now, and finding them several inches taller.

The drive primarily involved Maya and Nadine talking animatedly in the backseat about what they were going to do once they got to New York. The primary subject involved the possibility of bringing TXNY to the NY side, if for one performance. They wouldn’t all be there, of course. It’d be the two of them and Smackle, as Riley wasn’t of the Basket Cases and thus wasn’t making the journey with them, but then how much had they done back in Austin with the three of them without Smackle? Riley would understand, wouldn’t she?

“Maybe we should run it by her before saying anything to Smackle,” Nadine suggested. “If she doesn’t want us doing it, we won’t even bring it up.”

Maya agreed, and so they sent off a message to Riley, asking what she thought of the idea. She’d be on her way to school by now, if she hadn’t made it already. A few minutes later, she sent in her reply, which was a resounding yes, with the promise that they would film it if it happened. So, they had then messaged Smackle with the offer. It wouldn’t be their first show since the accident. They’d actually done a few in the last few months, once Maya had been recovered enough that she felt able to do it, seeing as she _was_ the lead singer. She couldn’t play her guitar, so they’d had to bring on a temporary player. But she had been practicing again, since her cast had come off, with Lucas there to watch and listen, and the more she’d done it, the more she found her rhythm back. If they pulled off getting this show together, it would be the first one where she both sang and played since October.

Smackle was on board for the show; she was already looking into venues, to neither of her bandmates’ surprise. And so, the rest of the ride was spent with Maya and Nadine discussing what songs they might perform. They had done enough shows in Austin now that they had something of a feeling for how those would go, but it would be their first show outside the city, outside the state of Texas, and somehow it felt like they were starting back from zero. They had fans out there, they knew, but they couldn’t exactly say how it would pan out.

Finally, they made it to the airport, where they were reunited with Rebecca and Scott, the other half of their group, and Mr. Matthews to accompany them of course. Maya and Nadine told them about the plans for the New York show, and they knew they’d probably talk about it once they got on the plane, too. They should probably talk about the competition at some point, but for now, it was all TXNY.

Before they could get to that, there was still one thing that needed to happen, before boarding, too. They had to say goodbye to their families. Nadine had already done this before heading over to Maya’s the night before. Now here was Scott saying goodbye to his mother and father, there was Rebecca promising her mothers she would call them when she landed… Maya turned to her parents, and there was something of a pause as they looked to each other. She’d told Lucas the day before that she would leave this whole problem between them and her parents back in the basement, and that was what she would do, but there was still that small moment where it couldn’t be escaped. The Lucas of it all had been left behind, but the other part, the rift between her and her mother and father…

It wasn’t quite a rift anymore, not as it had once been. They had moved past the part where she could barely speak to them in any way. They did speak now, in a way which might have appeared to the common observer to be the conversation level of a normal, well-adjusted family. But if they were in the know, as she was, as they were, they could see there was still something, still a chill, a distance. Because for however much Maya tried, and she did try, so very hard, not to be stuck in that headspace where they were the people who had hurt her, and hurt Lucas, and continued to hold him as someone unwelcome near her, near their house… But how could she do that when they were still those people?

“Have a good time out there, okay?” her mother told her.

“I will,” Maya nodded.

“Knock ‘em dead,” her father added.

“Count on it,” she promised.

For a moment, none of them said anything. That was the thing that happened now. They’d be talking, and then they would stop… No one knew what to say next. _Leave it in the basement._ She looked at them, and she thought about the fact that she wouldn’t see them for a week. She thought about the weekend she’d spent at Rebecca’s, when this had all started, where even then, being away from them may have fixed some things, but it had hurt in other ways, made her miss them. And she _was_ going to miss them, being away from them for a week. So even though she couldn’t think of anything to say, she stepped up and did the one thing she knew she wanted to do and could do. She pulled them both into an embrace. Their arms closed around her, held her so close… For that moment at least, there was nothing between them but the love they had always had for one another, and always would… no matter what.

TO BE CONTINUED


	186. Her Journey to New York

By the time they landed, they already had a story to tell their waiting friends. Farkle and Smackle were to meet them at their hotel once they got out of school, by which time the five of them had already unpacked and settled in. Once those two arrived, the four kids out of Basket Cases would join them on a walk out into the city.

As soon as the pair arrived, they were greeted with excited hugs and a rambling tale of what had happened on the plane. Maya had mentioned previously how she’d had that uncertainty about whether the TXNY show in New York would work or not, and then they’d met these two kids their age, who were on the same flight, returning home. Megan and Tariq, as they’d soon been introduced, had been sitting across the aisle from them, by the window. Nadine, who’d been on the end of the row of seats their quintet occupied, had started to notice the two of them stealing glances every so often, whispering between themselves. When she’d told Maya, sitting next to her, _she_ had craned her neck to observe, and that had done it. The two by the windows had apparently seen Nadine and thought she kind of looked like one of the girls from TXNY, but they hadn’t been sure, not until they’d seen Maya, too, and now they were sure.

This had given way to an extended conversation between the four of them. Megan and Tariq had been fans since they’d first started finding their videos, and they claimed to know all their songs now, something Maya had a feeling they would have shown right then and there in the middle of the plane, if given incentive to. The pair asked if they were headed to New York, and the girls nodded, explaining how they were headed for a competition with their quiz team. Maya had looked to Nadine with a silent look her friend had easily understood to mean ‘should we tell them about the show?’ Nadine had had the same idea, but then she’d just as quietly suggested they might not want to say anything, not until they knew for sure the show would happen. Maya had agreed; they wanted to do the show, but it didn’t mean they’d pull it off. They were here for something specific after all, and they wouldn’t penalize the rest of the team for it.

They had left the pair with no revelation on the show, though they _had_ taken pictures with them and, much to the girls’ amusement, had signed autographs. Of course, when others around them had seen this happen, they’d been left to wonder who these two girls were that their signatures were of any value, and Megan had been quick to inform those who asked that they, Maya and Nadine, were one half of the great band TXNY. They may not have known about the band, but on the off chance that they might want to remember this moment, a few more pictures had happened, and a few more autographs. Now the girls were sure of one thing: if there was any way at all for this show to happen, they _had_ to make it happen. And once they did, they’d make sure Megan and Tariq got to be there, front and center.

The tale had been told in such a whirlwind that, once it was done, Maya realized… remembered… that this was the first time they were together since the accident. She saw it when, rather than commenting on the story, Farkle looked at her for a moment, then hugged her again, hugged her like he’d been wanting to do it since October… He’d been worried about her, which she’d known, though now she felt just how much. She hugged him back, smiling.

“I’m okay… I’m okay…” she whispered, though he kept on hugging her. When they pulled back, he tipped his head in gratitude, and in the next moment she was being hugged again, this time by Smackle. For having known her faraway bandmate’s original reticence toward embraces of the kind, this felt almost like a whole other person. This one gave a solid squeeze, and Maya’s face broke into a beaming smile, holding her, too. “Good to see you, too, Isadora.” Once she’d let go, Smackle kept looking at her, looking at the scar plainly visible on her forehead Maya recognized the look. It had a tendency to draw the eye, though she didn’t feel the need to brush her hair over it quite as much as she used to. The way she saw it, the scar was something that had happened to her, and it wasn’t up to her to hide it, it was up to them not to stare.

“We have a few ideas for the show, we thought we could go and see if we can book it,” Smackle finally spoke once she’d blinked and caught herself staring.

“Good! Let’s go,” Nadine looked to Rebecca and Scott, who nodded, ready to follow them. So, the six of them headed out, promising Mr. Matthews they wouldn’t stay out too late.

Maya breathed in as they stepped out on to the street. Being back in New York seemed to feel different every time she did it. The first time had been something of a mixed bag… the Christmas they’d spent here had been magical… This time… It might have been the first time she came back here and really felt like she had always wanted to feel, being here. She felt like she was visiting a dear old friend, much in the way she felt in visiting Farkle and Smackle. She felt happy, and at peace. She couldn’t wait to walk around, feeling she was in this wonderful place that had always meant so much to her, that still meant a whole lot to this day.

TO BE CONTINUED


	187. Her Journey to Explore

They had set out with the determination to have a date for their show locked in by the time they returned to the hotel. Well, Maya definitely did, and she knew Nadine did, too, and Smackle… Alright, all of them did. It was clear that the sooner they had a date and a venue locked in, the better their chances would be to get the word out and have an actual audience show up, to get themselves prepared but also attend to the genuine purpose for their trip to New York. The date of the show was easy enough to decide on. Their competition was in the afternoon, a few days from now, and they were flying back to Texas midday on the following day. So, they were going to have the show on the night after the competition, the night before their departure. They could sleep on the plane…

Selecting the date was one thing. Now they had to not only find a venue but find one that would take them on that specific date. It might well have been that they would come up empty, and if that happened, well then there wouldn’t be any show, and they all had to accept that before they started any of this.

They struck out. It wasn’t a complete bust, a few of the places they’d stopped at would have been glad to have them, they really would, only the short notice and the available date for the band was not working for them and they had to say no. They also had a few places where they were turned away without any explanation other than the person in charge seeing them as little more than a few high school girls thinking they had something to show when they probably didn’t. Some among them would have fought those claims, but then it wasn’t really worth it. If this was going to happen, then it would happen.

It wasn’t all venue hunting. The six of them went zooming across the city over those few hours, yes, though it was never in some giant rush. They would decide where they were headed, and they would start in that direction, but if they saw anything that pulled them off track a bit, they didn’t stop themselves either. Food was had… a few times… coffee here, juice there… Maya had embraced her inner tourist in her hometown and gotten a few cute New York onesies and shirts for the twins.

She had not felt this good, being back here, in so long… even the Christmas before last… She had not felt this good, being back here, since before she’d found out they were moving away almost five years ago. The only thing that would have made it better… surprisingly, her mind didn’t go to Lucas this time, though without a doubt his being around made everything in her life better. No, this time she thought about her parents.

She knew she had vowed to leave their situation in the basement, back in Austin, and she had. But then, sitting in a train whizzing past under the surface of New York City, the thought wouldn’t let her go. _I wish they were here…_ And the feeling was so strong, so unblemished with everything she had been feeling since October, that it gave her shivers… made her eyes well up, not because she knew the other feelings were still there, somewhere, but… because to feel so deeply how much she wished her parents could be here with her, like this, it just felt so good… She’d forgotten how good it felt, because for months now she’d only been able to feel the other thing, the anguish, the betrayal, the frustration… But not now.

“Maya, you alright?” Nadine asked, and Maya blinked, broken from her thoughts and made to look up again, finding her friends, sitting around her and across from her, were all sort of looking at her. She reached to her cheeks, found them wet.

“I’m fine, I just…” she shook her head. Smackle was holding out a tissue pack she’d pulled from her bag, and Maya had to take one, trying to clear her face as quickly and innocently as possible.

“Is it because we didn’t get a place for the show?” Smackle asked. It was an out like any other, though she didn’t really want to lie either. In the end, she just gave a vague shrug, and they left it alone.

Thankfully, her face had cleared and she had pulled herself together again by the time they made it back to the hotel and Mr. Matthews. She didn’t feel like getting into it with him either. He asked them if they had found a spot for their show, and they replied by shaking their heads.

“Good,” he nodded, and they all stared at him, frowning. “Alright, that came out wrong,” he admitted, replaying that reply in his head. “What I mean is… _I_ found you a spot. On the night after the competition, before we leave, hope that’s alright.”

They were all so shell-shocked at first, from his first revelation, that it took them a moment to respond to the second. He’d found them a venue? How? Where? Was he making a joke?

He wasn’t making a joke, and once they had given a rousing assurance that, yes, that date was very much alright, he told them about what he’d done. Having flown with them and been with them all the way up to the point where they’d left with Farkle and Smackle, of course he had known about their plans, to have a show here in town while they were there. He also guessed that the odds of their finding a venue so soon, with their time constraints, would not be very good. But there was another thing he knew, one _they_ hadn’t. Primarily, they didn’t realize he was still very much in touch with his former colleagues at John Quincy Adams middle school.

There was a dance, on that given night. All it had taken was one phone call, and they were set. TXNY would play the Valentine’s dance… if they wanted to.

TO BE CONTINUED


	188. Her Journey to Confidence

The next few days would be a whirlwind. The priority was, as it had to be, the competition. That was the reason they’d even come here, and they weren’t going to fail because of this other purpose which had fallen into their laps. Still, when they weren’t practicing, when they weren’t attending any related events, they were devoting any and all free time to setting up for their show.

It had taken very little time for the three members of the band on site to accept Mr. Matthews’ offer for them to play at the John Quincy Adams dance. They actually couldn’t have asked for anything better. And now that they knew they had this to look forward to, they had set themselves to figuring out what needed to be done and getting it done. Instruments? Farkle would take care of those. Set list? They knew how much time they had on stage, and the audience they’d have, and picking which of their songs to do would be a breeze. The only real ‘challenge’ was to compensate for the swap of not having Riley and having Smackle instead. And special guests… They knew their two fans from the plane were in high school, like they were, not middle school, but they had promised themselves to have the two of them there, and that was what they would do, if they were in any way able. Rebecca and Scott had set about tracking them down, through social media. It was easier than expected; of course, they had shared the pictures they’d taken with them. Once they did track them down, they extended the invitation, as a secret. As funny as it would be to imagine throngs of people descending upon the middle school, they knew it wouldn’t be fair on the kids who were just going there to attend their school’s dance.

And now the big day had come, big in more ways now than the one it was originally set to be. The hotel room had been in a state of chaos since sunrise. It might have been, before, that they would calmly pack their bags that night, after the competition, in anticipation for the next morning’s flight home, but now that evening was otherwise engaged, and so they had to handle this right away, and at the same time they had to set aside both their competition gear and the one for the show, too.

Finally, they were on their way to the competition. Farkle and Smackle would meet them there, so the car ride went with Mr. Matthews at the wheel, complaining about traffic, and the Basket Cases in the back… all of them unnaturally quiet. It wasn’t their first competition by far, but still, something about this one seemed to have robbed them all of the ability to speak all of a sudden. Sure, it was the first time they had travelled so extensively for a match, but was that any reason to lose their nerve?

Maya had asked herself that, and the answer seemed uncomfortably easy to find. Of course, this was different. None of them would like the thought of travelling all this way only to fall flat on their faces, right? What if they lost… What if they lost _a lot_? Imagine the flight home after that, imagine the return to their families, their school… And now, on top of that, imagine them trying to play a show for those middle schoolers that _wouldn’t_ feel like a downer party? They had to win… they just had to win.

They stayed in that state of uneasy silence all the way to the venue for the competition. When the car came to a stop, Maya tapped her teacher’s shoulder from behind him and asked if he might step out and leave the four of them alone for a minute. He gave her that look of his, that teacher look that said ‘I know what you’re thinking, and I believe in you,’ and he stepped out. Maya let out a breath and turned back to her teammates.

“Hey… guys, we’re here.” They looked back at her. Of course, they knew where they were. She frowned. “So, in case our being in _New York_ hasn’t let it sink in for you, we’re kind of really good at this, okay? We’ve got this.” There was the slightest relaxation in their tense looks, and she had to cling to that. “Now forget where we are, even… even though I’m the one who reminded you about it like twenty seconds ago. We’ve done this before. We’ve done this over and over, and this is just one more time. Not the first, not the last, just one more… We’re the Basket Cases, and we’re going to go out there and show those other teams just how scared of us they should be, got it?” she held out her hand in the space between the four of them, looking to Scott in the front, to Rebecca and Nadine next to her in the back.

And after a beat, letting it all sink in properly, the relaxation was achieved, one hand and then another, and a third, all coming to join hers, the faces found above the arms stretched out in the middle of the car showing smiles, showing a renewed confidence.

“Then let’s go!” Maya called loudly, as she might have done on the basketball court. And the resounding cheer from the other three along with her could have been heard across the parking lot. In Maya’s mind, it reverberated all the way to wherever the other teams were, and it settled in their hearts with a tremble, telling them… brace yourself… the Basket Cases are coming. And as they stepped out of the car and rejoined their teacher, her grin could have knocked any doubters aside. They had this…

TO BE CONTINUED


	189. Her Journey to Rise

Very late that night, an hour more for her than for him with the time difference, Maya called Lucas. Not to tell him about the competition, no. _That_ she’d told him about when she’d called the first time, in the car going from the competition to the show at her old school.

She didn’t know what would be funnier about that first call, the confused look on Lucas’ face back in Austin at the explosion of cheering voices coming from his phone, or him not knowing the chaos that was happening in the car as they were all talking at once… They’d been working to change from competition mode to band mode even as Mr. Matthews drove them, which involved trying to wrestle their way from some clothes into other clothes, all the while not giving a peep show to the rest of the passengers in their car or anyone able to see into the car, and then a lot of hair reorganizing which threatened to lead into accidental hair pulling if the car made a turn at the wrong time. And that wasn’t even counting makeup, which could end anywhere from a poked eye to abstract lipstick art if they weren’t careful.

The point of the matter was that they had won. The Basket Cases had been the uncontested champs of the day, which made for a lot of celebratory calls in that car ride. Maya had barely managed to tell Lucas about their victory, and a few of the highlights, and then she could only promise him a more detailed account when she got home. As far as he would have expected, he wouldn’t have heard from her until after she’d landed back in Texas.

Instead, she called him again shortly after one in the morning that night… Texas time. It had taken a while for him to answer, of course he’d be sleeping by then, but finally, there was his voice, sounding like it was still trying to shake off sleep.

“Maya?” A pause, which she could imagine involved his looking at the time, was followed by a clearer voice. “What’s wrong?”

“I… I couldn’t sleep,” she told him, peering back over her shoulder to look through the door into the room where the others slept. She was sitting out on the balcony with her phone.

“Show adrenaline?” he guessed. She didn’t reply. “Maya? What happened?”

By the time they’d reached John Quincy Adams middle school, the half of the Basket Cases that also belonged to TXNY had gone from straight-laced competition ready girls to their inner music selves, and for having achieved this transformation in a moving vehicle, the result was as perfect as they could have hoped for. And that was just as well, for Maya especially. When they pulled up to her old school, she could barely remember what they’d gone there for.

Technically speaking, she’d only gone there for a few weeks, at the top of 7th grade, before she and her mother had left New York and moved to Texas, which would make the attachment almost strange. But this had been the place she’d been pulled from, and in the beginning, back when she had been so torn apart for having to leave, it had come to represent so much more than what it had been. Riley still went there, and Farkle… and she would have done so, too, if she hadn’t been ripped from everything she’d known. This school was her lost potential…

Alright, so she’d come to see things differently in time, had come to discover a new life and a new world down in Austin, but she hadn’t forgotten about this place, and what it had represented for her. So, to be back here, and with this whole other mindset, now knowing that going to Austin had been the best thing she could have hoped for… It was all sort of bittersweet, more so on the sweet side.

They had been ushered into the school through some back entrance, away from the kids. Seeing them, it was hard to believe they had been that small just a few short years ago, or that it had been so long since they’d been here. As far as they knew, the kids were aware that TXNY would be their live musical entertainment. There was no telling as of yet whether some if any of them had ever heard of them before, if they were happy or indifferent over their presence, though Farkle, Rebecca, and Scott had all volunteered to go out and ‘feel the room’ while Maya, Nadine, and Smackle made final preparations before they took to the stage.

It seemed like only the day before when it had been four of them together on the stage, when it had actually been several months. Smackle had done her part of things – a sizable part at that – from here in New York all this time, but this would be her first stage performance since the previous summer. There was no worry as to whether or not she was ready to go back up there. She had ‘embraced her inner rock star,’ as she had declared to them somewhere on that trek through the city in search of a venue.

Their scouts had returned with what they’d managed to gather, which was that there was a noted following of the band here at John Quincy Adams. Somehow it had gotten out that some of the members had attended the school back in the day, and that had transformed into a matter of pride, like they belonged to them a little bit. Not all of the students were of that same mind, though they hadn’t come across any sort of dislike at the prospect of their performance, which meant it was all up to them… They just had to give those kids a great show, and that was exactly what they intended to do.

Maya had only allowed herself a minute’s personal uncertainty before they went on stage. She had practiced plenty now, and her arm was fine, she could play just as well as she ever did. Everything would be alright. And it was. The show had been as great as they could have wanted it to be. The students (and the faculty and chaperones) looked to be having a raucously good time. And there were Megan and Tariq, out among them, absolutely thrilled to be there, middle school or not.

Of course, the fact that they were much taller than the other kids had a way of making them stand out, and the same could be said of someone shorter than the others. Maya had spotted a boy somewhere apart from the crowd gathered near the stage. He couldn’t have been more than nine or ten, and his presence here seemed almost not to fit, but then the way he was looking at the three of them on the stage, maybe a parent or sibling who taught or went here had brought him because he liked the band.

“Hey, little man, want to come up here?” she’d called to him at some point, feeling inspired. But when she’d addressed him, he’d gasped and disappeared out of the gym. The show had gone on, no one giving much recall to the moment, though it had stayed with Maya. And then, after the show had been over, after they’d gotten off the stage and moved out into the hall, to head back to the hotel and get some much needed sleep before their flight home in the morning, she’d spotted him there. “I’ll be right back,” she’d told the others, dashing to go and find the boy. “Hey… I’m sorry if I spooked you before,” she addressed him with a smile.

He looked at her, and in that instant something weird happened. He looked sort of startled, finding her there before him, but her… She looked at him, and there was something… she couldn’t explain it… It felt like she knew him from somewhere.

“You… you didn’t, I…” He kept staring at her now, like he didn’t know what to say. “Everyone makes fun because… I skipped a couple grades.”

“Oh, then you go here?” she blinked, and he nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Sam,” he introduced himself.

“Nice to meet you, Sam. I’m Maya,” she introduced herself back, holding out her hand in a wave.

“I know,” he replied, and she smirked. So, he _was_ a fan of the band.

“You know, I’m sure the others would like to meet you, too.”

“It’s okay,” he shook his head. “My father is supposed to pick me up any minute…” Even as he said this, the door at the end of the hall opened and a tall man stepped through.

“Hey, Sammy, ready to go?”

Maya froze, a chill resolving itself in her eyes, stinging, as she turned her head and saw the man who’d just walked in. Sam’s father… She didn’t know who was shocked the most, whether it was her, or the man who arrived expecting to find one of his children in that hallway and instead found two.

TO BE CONTINUED


	190. Her Start with the Shock

Imagining Lucas, sitting back in his room in Austin, processing the news that she had met her brother, she saw him sitting up, sort of listening more seriously than he already done. This was huge, and it more than explained her need to call him. The first thing he said was…

“How are you doing?” He didn’t ask if she was okay, because clearly, she wasn’t. “Do the others know?”

“No… I would have called Riley, but then she would have been tempted to call her dad, tell him… something, and I… I don’t want that. But I had to talk, I…” She sighed.

“What happened after he showed up?” ‘He…’ Lucas didn’t even say ‘after your father showed up.’

“Well, neither of them said anything about it, but I know from how they reacted, Sam didn’t tell him about the show, about who was going to be playing at the dance, and… and my father knows about the band.” She could still see the look of pure shock on Kermit’s face, blindsided as he’d been by the presence of his daughter, and then adding to it the fact that she now stood face to face with his son… her brother… for the first time in any of their lives. “And then I… I just had to get out of there, I couldn’t…”

_I’m sorry… I’m really sorry…_ That was what she’d whispered, looking back to Sam, before making her escape, cutting back through to the gym – much to the giddiness of the John Quincy Adams middle school contingent of the band’s following – in order to catch up with the others, who’d be waiting at the car. She knew that, by the time she reached them, she’d have to either look completely normal or be ready to tell them what had happened.

She pulled off option A, telling them she’d gone to talk to the kid she’d scared off, to make sure he was okay, which was what she’d originally gone to do at least, before the brother bombshell had dropped. They’d gone back to the hotel, and after a late snack and brief conversation about the show, letting out the energy they’d gained from being on the stage, everyone had gone to turn in for the night, with the flight home just hours away.

Maya had gone to lie down, too, but much as she tried to force herself to go to sleep, it just wouldn’t happen. So finally, after the umpteenth turn over in her bed, she’d crawled out, grabbed her phone, gone to the balcony, and called Lucas.

“I can’t imagine what he must have thought…” she mumbled, closing her eyes, head bowed low.

“Maya…” Lucas spoke, in that tone she knew as ‘I wish I could be there with you right now.’

“I just needed to hear your voice…” she replied, _her_ tone promising that he _was_ with her. In her other hand, she held his pocket watch.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked, providing her not only with his voice but also with what little assistance he could provide her. “Are you going to reach out to him? Sam, not…”

“I… I want to, I think…” she said, and the answer had just come so freely, unexpectedly, that she knew it must be true. And yet… “I don’t know if I’m ready for it, I… I don’t even know if he wants to know me, I mean he kept his distance, he ran off when I called out to him, and when I talked to him all he said was that he knew who I was, and then… I ran from him. Whether or not he wanted to know me before, what about now?”

“There’s a chance he’ll turn you away,” he admitted. “And if he does, it’ll probably hurt, but… at least you’ll know. And we’ll be there, no matter what.” _No matter the fact I’m not allowed to go to your house and meeting you outside of it is sort of breaking the rules._ “But there’s also a chance you guys will get to know each other.”

“He’s ten, Lucas… There’s no knowing him without my father being a part of it somehow,” she pointed out.

“But there’s no way around it. Is getting to know your brother worth it?”

She opened her eyes, looking out to the city beyond the balcony where she sat. Somewhere out there, she had a brother… she had siblings. She hadn’t even imagined that they might be close enough that they would attend the same school she did, but somehow, they did. Maybe they’d moved…

She did want to talk to him, really talk, in the full knowledge of their shared paternal bond. What would come of it was still far into the unknown, but she knew she at least wanted to try… something. That was sort of big for her, she knew. Back in the day, she would have wanted nothing of this, would have pretended like it didn’t exist, because acknowledging it would have hurt too much, would have been too hard for her to process. But here, now, she was someone else. She’d grown, in every way that a person could grow, and maybe for that… for that… she might get to know her little brother…

“We’re leaving in the morning…” she reminded Lucas.

“You might not get to see him while you’re still here, but even if you don’t… you get to show him that this matters to you by what you do next.” She turned her eyes up to the sky, squeezing that pocket watch in her hand. She didn’t know that she could have slept right now even if she tried. And she could do that on the plane.

“I’ll find him… I’ll find a way to reach out to him… Thank you, go back to bed, okay?”

“Just keep me posted?” he asked, and she promised she would. “I miss you… I love you…”

“And I love you… and I can’t wait to see you again.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	191. Her Start With Information

By the time Mr. Matthews had woken up his four charges, inciting them to get ready to head to the airport, Maya didn’t know that she’d gotten all of an hour of sleep, though she managed as best she could to go about things as though she’d slept closer to seven or eight. As far as they knew, it was a day like any other. What _she_ knew… well…

It was hard to track down a ten-year-old, that much she had expected going into this search, and certainly she could appreciate it to a point. Although being that _she_ was not some internet creep, just a girl trying to contact the half-brother she’d only met the night before, she kind of wished it would at least be a little easier for her. The best she could do was to rely on what she had, and what did she have?

He was a student at John Quincy Adams middle school. He possibly followed her band. He was smart, very smart, at least enough that he’d been able to jump a couple grades. Sam…

For a while she kind of spun in circles, getting frustrated at the lack of information at hand. She snuck out of the hotel room to go in search of snacks, because the frustration made her hungry. Back up in the room, on the balcony, armed with corn chips she tried to chew as quietly as one _could_ chew their way through the crunchy things, she sat there for a while, not searching but thinking. There had to be a way.

When she heard the door open just over her shoulder, she didn’t even need to look to know who would be standing there, even as he moved to sit in the chair next to her. She held out the bag of corn chips, and Mr. Matthews took a few. She hesitated for a few seconds, the sound of crunching and the city below melding together. Finally, she casually spoke up.

“If I wanted to track down someone… a student, back at John Q., how would I do it?”

“Anyone in particular?” he asked, and she couldn’t say if he actually already knew or if he genuinely needed to be told, but at this point she’d exhausted everything, including herself, so what did she have to lose?

“My brother?” she looked at him. He blinked – so he hadn’t known – but then he sat back, looking at the city skyline, thinking.

“If you try and get some sleep now, I’ll see what I can do in the morning. Nothing’s going to get done at this hour. Deal?”

She let out a sigh, but then she nodded, picking up her things to return inside the room and to the bed she shared with Nadine. Rebecca had one to herself, as did Scott, while Mr. Matthews had the couch. She wished she could say she’d miraculously, finally, gotten to sleep as soon as her head met the pillow, but of course she didn’t. She kept on staring at that ceiling a while longer, she couldn’t say how long, but then, finally, she drifted off.

As they were all getting dressed, gathering up their things and making sure they weren’t forgetting anything around the room, Maya was very aware of Mr. Matthews off on the balcony, talking on his phone. For a second or two she was left to wonder if he was talking to her parents back in Austin, even though she’d asked him not to. But then she also saw he had a pen and the pad of paper from the hotel they’d found in a drawer when they’d checked in. He was writing something down.

Whatever he’d found, he didn’t mention it after he came back into the room. It was time to check out and get into the car. Not until they made it to the airport and were checked in did he extend a folded piece of paper to her with a tip of the head. Maya’s breath caught for a second as she unfolded it to find an e-mail address. More than that, and almost chuckling to herself, the part that came before the @ sign she was familiar with, as a username she’d spotted on several comments to their videos, long, glowing praise comments… So, he did follow the band.

There was no way she could contact him and somehow meet with him before they took off, this much she had expected already, although it still felt like a small disappointment. She wished she could have done this face to face, although maybe this would be better for the both of them in the end. It removed some of the pressure. And as they waited to take off, Maya sat in her seat and got to composing a message. At least now he’d have a way to reach her, too.

_Dear Sam,_

_In case you’re wondering, I was able to get a hold of your email through a former teacher at your school, which you might know was also once my school. I wanted to get in touch with you, to make up for the brief encounter we had last night. As I’m writing this, I’m sitting on a plane, waiting to fly back home to Austin. I wish we could have met up in person before I had to go, but there was no time, so I’m writing to you instead._

_I wanted you to know, I didn’t run off because I didn’t want to talk to you. But I didn’t realize who you really were, not until your dad… until our father showed up. I don’t know how much you know about our history, but… I couldn’t face him, and that’s why I had to go._

_I would like for us to be able to make up for that failed meeting. If you don’t want to, I’ll understand, but just to let you know, I’m willing if you are._

_Take care,_

_Maya_

TO BE CONTINUED


	192. Her Start With Returns

There was a brief moment as they boarded the plane, after hitting send on that message to Sam, where Maya feared her nerves would prevent her from getting the much-needed sleep she wanted on this flight, leaving her to arrive back home feeling like the walking dead. But instead, somewhere between buckle in and take-off, she drifted off into a sound sleep, so much so that she was awakened by Nadine’s shaking her shoulder to inform her they had arrived. It felt like teleportation.

Either way, the sleep had done her a world of good. She did check her phone to find no reply as of yet, but she guessed Sam might have been off to school by the time she’d sent the message, so he wouldn’t have had time to reply. Either that or he didn’t know what to say yet… if he wanted to say anything at all. She couldn’t dwell on those options, not now. She was home… back in Texas.

As they made their way off the plane, Rebecca spotted her mothers and detached from the group, and then so did Nadine, and Scott. Maya turned to Mr. Matthews for a moment, tipping her head in a silent sign of gratitude for what he’d done, enabling her contact with her little brother. He just smiled that smile of his, before pointing off somewhere. She turned to look, and she saw her parents, standing there with the double stroller carrying her baby sisters.

Seeing them there, her heart seemed to take over all controls, sending her in a sprint, until she could jump into her mother and father’s waiting arms. They held her tight, and she didn’t know that she’d felt so close to them in the last few months as she did now. She had missed them… so much more than words could say. She had missed them, even when they were right there sitting near her in recent months, but that was something else entirely, wasn’t it?

When she pulled back, seeing the happy tears on both of their faces, looking back at her, it took her mother’s reaching gently to her face to realize _she_ was crying, too. There were still problems, the ones she had left down in the basement, and sooner or later they would reassert themselves, she knew, unless they’d somehow magically decided to change their minds about Lucas, but those problems couldn’t touch them, not now.

She crouched before the stroller to observe the twins, the pair of them sound asleep, though Maya suspected that wouldn’t last long. She could swear they had grown, in the week she’d been away. Carefully holding one small hand from each, she couldn’t help but think… she had so many siblings now. Sam and his two or three siblings, she wasn’t sure… and then Nellie and Gracie… _They_ were in no way related, but _she_ was, to all of them, by her mother, by her birth father… She was never going to feel the same way about all of them, was she? That wasn’t a bad thing, it was just the way it was, with their situation. At the same time, it was hard not to think that, if her father had never left, none of them would ever have been born… and others might have.

By the time they were all buckled into their car, headed back toward home, her parents naturally wanted to hear all about The Big Day. She’d been keeping them updated all through the week, sure, but then the big event, which had turned into big events thanks to the show, had all been the day before, and they hadn’t really had the chance to talk. So, she set about telling them about it, about the competition, and then the show at John Quincy Adams.

As she was retelling all of it, she could see it in her head again, as vividly as when it had all happened. And when she got to the point of the show, standing on that stage in her old middle school gym, she could see him again… That small boy, with sandy hair, square glasses… staring back at her. But in the story that she told her parents, he disappeared. She didn’t mention any part of it, her calling out to him, their encounter… their father… the sleepless night and the search, and then the message…

She didn’t know why she did it. Maybe she wanted to protect this unfolding event while she could, until she knew just _how_ it would unfold. Right now, it was still sort of hanging in the air, and same as her not telling her friends – except for Lucas, and then by necessity Mr. Matthews – she felt the need to protect this secret, if only for the time being.

They were on their way to the Matthews house, for an impromptu celebration of the Basket Cases, organized by the parents all waiting at the airport earlier. When they got there, she was almost toppled off her feet by Riley’s welcome hug, followed by so many frenzied words of how much she’d missed her, and all she had to show her, and all she could do was follow as she was pulled up toward the stairs and to the second floor, to Riley’s room… When her best friend’s ramblings stopped all at once, Maya looked at her, wondering what was going on. Riley just grinned at her, pushing the door to her room open.

And there was Lucas, with a smile, and with flowers, and there was her heart again, taking the wheel and sending her on the short dash and leap that would send her into his arms. He caught her, spun her around for good measure. Days ago, with all of them so many miles from one another on Valentine’s Day, he had promised her those flowers, promised he’d have them for her as soon as she returned… and here he was.

TO BE CONTINUED


	193. Her Start With Baggage

When they finally returned home after the small party (and the smaller one, briefly, up in Riley’s room, before Lucas snuck out again so not to end up getting busted) at the Matthews house, Maya was never so glad to see her little house, or to take the stairs down into her room in the basement. It was hard, after so much referring to her problem with her parents as being ‘left in the basement,’ not to step on to those stairs and find herself thinking about the whole situation, especially after having just been out there, hanging with him for a few short minutes while pretending it was just her and Riley so not to let her parents know she’d seen him. She stopped there, midway down, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. She reminded herself of that feeling, back at the airport, when she’d seen her parents for the first time after a week… If she could hang on to that feeling, maybe it would help to counterbalance the other feeling? As though it would ever be alright that they treated him the way they’d done, still did.

By the time she made it down the rest of the stairs, her suitcase left there at the bottom before she could go and drop on to her bed with a deep breath of release in her for being home at last, it felt like she was trying to shove the bad feeling in a drawer somewhere. She didn’t want to go there, not today. So much was happening today. It had started the night before, sure, but between her disrupted sleep and the flight home, it all still felt like one giant day, and really how could it not, when she’d stood face to face with the brother she’d never met.

Never met, no, but not unknown either. She still remembered the day… She’d been eight years old, and she’d been hanging out with Riley, at her house, after they’d both been picked up from school and brought to the Matthews home. They were making up stories, sat up in the bay window, imagining that the room was their vessel, and the window was their view upon the world below them, the world they would conquer. And then she’d heard her mother’s voice, indicating she must have arrived to pick her up. In the guise of the story, of course, this took the shape of ‘our ship has been boarded, we must defend it!’ And so, the two little pirates had gone sneaking deeper into their ‘ship’ to find the stowaways. They’d stopped just out of view, and there they’d stood, listening.

Katy Hart had been telling Topanga Matthews – in the sort of trepidation of someone who’d been stuck holding on to something for a while before finally letting it out – how she’d been out on her lunch break earlier that day, when she’d spotted her ex-husband. Maya, where she’d been hiding, had barely managed to contain her gasp. _Daddy?_ Her mother had gone on though to reveal Kermit hadn’t been alone. He’d been going along with a woman, the two of them joined by a stroller and a small child sat inside it. Even at that age, it hadn’t taken long for Maya to understand what that meant. The child was his child, the child was her half-brother.

She remembered being so… so upset. Her father’s deserting them, deserting her, was still so fresh then, even after a couple years, and now to know that he had a new wife, a new child… To her child’s mind, all it boiled down to was that she and her mother hadn’t been good enough, and so he’d gone and replaced them. It had made her hate that baby in the stroller. She hadn’t seen it, she didn’t know it, she didn’t care that it was her brother, it had taken her father and for that she could never feel anything but hate for it.

The years had gone on, and the next time she’d heard anything was not too long before they’d moved to Texas. Again, someone had spotted the little family, though this time it had been Mr. & Mrs. Matthews. Either way, Maya had once again found herself listening in to a conversation she wasn’t meant to hear. They had seen Kermit, and his wife, and there was once again a stroller, but along with this stroller were two small children, a boy and a girl. So now her father had three children, well how wonderful for him…

In the intervening years, she couldn’t say that her feelings for her father’s new family had completely detached themselves from hate, although they had gone sinking into a type of indifference that felt sort of vital to her peace of mind. Her father wasn’t her father anymore, and she didn’t care for him to be, so they were welcome to him. Still, she couldn’t pretend as though hearing that there were still more children, and that they looked happy and carefree, hadn’t settled in the pit of her stomach like so many boulders.

That was years ago now, and her life had changed so much since that day. Her father’s abandonment had not stopped holding sway over her emotions, as that incident when he’d come to Texas had shown, but as to her feelings toward his children… She hadn’t realized how she’d sort of let go of her old feelings, not until she’d stood before little Sam and understood who he was. She’d looked into his face, the face that resembled her own in some features, and there was no hate, not even a little. Quite the opposite, she thought of him, and all she could think was… maybe now she could actually know him, and that… that kind of felt like something she wanted to do. The question remained only whether _he_ would feel the same.

TO BE CONTINUED


	194. Her Start With a Brother

Life had slowly but surely gotten back on track in the days that followed. The Basket Cases quartet was back in school after their ‘vacation,’ though none of them seemed to complain all that much. Adding to this the various reunited couples within their group of friends… and reunited friends for that matter… it was a fairly jolly day all around. The only possibility of a shadow over it all, which never got to be that bad, was hanging over Maya, as she waited to see if Sam would reply to her message. So far, he hadn’t, and much as she knew there could be a perfectly good reason for this, part of her couldn’t help but wonder what it would mean. The rest of the week had unfolded much in this way. And then Saturday morning had come.

She was down in her room, tackling her homework before heading out for an early, double shift day at the diner, when her phone gave the familiar chirp of an incoming Skype call. She’d sort of absently turned her head to look at the screen and see who it was, only to turn back again when she saw who it was. She’d almost forgotten she’d included her contact information at the bottom of that message she’d sent…

With a deep breath – and a furtive glance back to the steps – she picked up her phone and accepted the call. A moment later, a small bespectacled face was staring back at her, looking about as shy and awkward as she probably did right about then.

“Hi,” Sam spoke first.

“Hi, Sam,” she replied, and much as she was still sort of processing the fact that he had finally replied, and in this way, her face seemed to know how she felt about it all, because she smiled… and for that, he seemed to relax just a bit. “I’m really glad you called,” she went on. There was a small part of her which seemed to guard against jumping in with both feet, like maybe he was calling to tell her he didn’t want to talk, but this was quickly eliminated. He _was_ a bit unsure, insecure, but he wanted to talk.

“You are?” he asked.

“Yes, I…” she sighed, resettling in her seat. “I really didn’t want to leave things the way we did a few days ago, at the dance, that was… that was kind of a shock.”

“I’m sorry, I-I didn’t mean to…”

“No, hey, you don’t have to apologize,” she assured him.

“But I knew you were going to be there, at the dance. My mom didn’t even want me going, said I was too young, but I insisted. A-and then when Dad came…”

“Really, don’t worry about it, please?” It was astounding how short of a time it could take for her to feel bonded to him. She barely knew him, but she could see how upset he was getting, and it pained her to see _him_ in pain… her little brother… “Let’s just start over. Hi, I’m Maya,” she gave him an encouraging nod and a smile.

“I’m Sam… I… I know you don’t know me, but I know about you… My dad was your dad, and… I’m your brother,” he slowly declared. Maya watched him through all this, and somehow her takeaway was that, much as she could look at him and see herself in his features, the impression it gave her was more akin to ‘if Farkle and Smackle had a kid, he’d be it.’

“That’s good,” she told him. There was a beat of silence for a few seconds, and Maya was caught off guard by it. Now that they’d gotten past the redo on introductions, she felt just a bit at a loss for words, and she knew that wouldn’t be good. He might misinterpret it as her not really wanting to talk to him, when really, she just wanted so badly to say all the right things. How did one handle being reunited with a brother like this… For a moment she thought about Shawn, and how _he’d_ been reunited with his half-brother Jack, but then they’d both been grown at the time, hadn’t they? Sam was still a kid, it just wouldn’t be the same.

For his part, Sam gave off the distinct impression of having a load of questions in his head but not having any clue how to start asking them, like they might be too intrusive, even though he desperately wanted to know.

And then she spotted something on her screen, just over his shoulder. A drawing, hanging on the wall… two of them in fact, and if he moved, she wasn’t sure there wouldn’t be more.

“Did you do those?” she asked, pointing as best she could to indicate the drawings. Sam hesitated for a moment, unsure what she meant, until he turned his head and realized what she was pointing at.

“Yeah, I…” he shrugged.

“You like to draw?” she asked, and after a moment, he gave a small nod. Oh, her smile was wide now. “Check this out…” she got up, moving back with her phone held before herself, until she stood before her wall of art. Sam could see it now, and to see how his eyes widened, and how he gave her a first, wide smile… a smile that was one of their shared features… she knew she had him.

“Wow…” was all he could say, and Maya laughed.

“Come on, give me a close up on yours,” she begged, and he got up at once, moving to his small display, which was in fact comprised of four drawings in total. One showed the front of his school, _her_ old school. The second showed a bird and a dog – his pets, as he informed her. The third showed a boy on a skateboard, his best friend Kip. The fourth showed three children, two young girls and a baby in the bigger girl’s arms. These, he told her, were his siblings… _their_ siblings.

TO BE CONTINUED


	195. Her Start With Truth

In the days that followed, Maya would find herself corresponding on a daily basis with her little brother. She would text him, ask how he was doing, and he would reply and tell her about his day. He would write, and he would attach a picture of another of his drawings, and he would want to see another of hers so she’d send one back. After a few days she got to feeling like he wanted to talk about other things, but either wasn’t sure how to approach them or wasn’t ready. She didn’t insist on the subject, though she had a feeling it all could be boiled down to one thing, one person: their father. Eventually, they were going to have to talk about it, but she wasn’t exactly in too big of a hurry herself.

Beyond their conversations, his presence in her life remained something of a guarded secret. Lucas knew, of course, and by now Riley did, too, and then Mr. Matthews had known, but that was about it. In time, she knew, she would tell the rest of the group about meeting him, but for the time being, somewhere in her she at least felt like she couldn’t tell them, not yet… not until she’d told other people.

One evening, with Shawn out on an errand, Maya found herself alone with her mother and the twins, and she got this feeling like… _now, now’s the time, talk to her._

“Mom, I need to talk to you about something,” she started, before she could change her mind. Her mother turned to her, and, seeing very briefly this sort of bracing motion about her, she knew her mother assumed she wanted to talk about Lucas. Understanding how this reflected her ongoing distrust of her daughter’s boyfriend, it threw Maya just a bit off her game, but she took a breath and forged ahead. “Not that,” she bowed her head before facing her again.

“Oh… right,” her mother blinked, looking apologetic at once. “Sorry.”

“When we were in New York, I… At the show, at the school, there was this boy, standing far in the back, ten years old. I figured someone brought him along because he liked the band or something, so I called him to join us on stage, but he ran off. After the show, I saw him standing in the hall, and I went to him, to sort of apologize for putting him on the spot. I introduced myself, but he said he already knew who I was, and then…” she sighed. “His father showed up… my, _our_ … our father showed up,” she let the emphasis carry its meaning, and the surprise washed over her mother. She didn’t reply. Maya could imagine she didn’t entirely know _what_ to say. “When I saw him, I kind of panicked, so I ran off and left them there…” she admitted, and that seemed at least to raise action if not words out of her mother. Katy reached out for her hands, gave them a squeeze. “But then I… I couldn’t stop thinking about him… Sam… my brother…”

“Is that who you’ve been texting with all week?” her mother finally asked. Of course, she would have noticed, although now Maya wondered who she thought it had been before, that she could have pinpointed her being in contact with someone new. Then again, did she really want to know what her, or her father, had believed? That it was Lucas, or maybe some new boy?

“Yeah,” she only confirmed the question itself and let the rest go.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” her mother went on, and Maya felt a sheepish sort of twinge come over her before meeting her mother’s eye again.

“I wasn’t sure, I… I didn’t know how you would react, and…” she shrugged, more dismissive than it really had any right to be.

“Oh, baby girl…” her mother let out a sigh, her hands moving now to hold her daughter’s face. “I don’t want you thinking you can’t talk to me about this, even if it goes back to Kermit,” she insisted, the mention of her ex-husband, of Maya’s father, giving the both of them what Maya had once called ‘variations on disdain.’ They both had their issues with him, for their own reasons. “But I understand why you didn’t, and I…” she gave a small smile, looking almost tearful, and Maya found herself giving off much of the same face, which led her mother to pull her into an embrace. She had wanted to protect her mother… she always wanted that… and her mother wanted the same for her, even if they didn’t always agree.

When Shawn came home, finding them still in conversation – Maya had been telling her mother about Sam and his drawings, how they’d been bonding over that – he looked curious as to what had them in such a good mood. Maya repeated the story of her first encounter with Sam back in New York, and how she’d been corresponding with him since then. And he looked happy for her. As she’d sort of expected, before long it led to his talking about how it had been, when _he_ had started to know his brother, which of course wouldn’t be the same, but still felt like something worth hearing, and sharing. The baggage may not have been the same, but it was still there. For whatever Shawn and Jack’s baggage had been, hers and Sam’s… He was the child her father had had after leaving her, and she was the child his father had abandoned… Sam may not have known how to start that conversation, but she knew it was right there in between them, circled in neon, giving off lasers, shouting for their attention, while they ignored it and talked about art and school. They could only ignore it for so long…

TO BE CONTINUED


	196. Her Start With Siblings

They had already decided that they would have another video call over the weekend, possibly start to make it a weekly thing. And what Maya found, as the days went on, the closer they got to the day of the call, was anticipation. It was there in Sam’s messages… he couldn’t wait to talk to her again. And much as things could feel a bit complicated… a lot complicated… with the Kermit of it all… As soon as she ignored his existence, as soon as she focused on Sam alone… there was nothing complicated about it. This was her brother, even if she was only now getting to know him.

On Saturday morning then, as they’d set the time, she waited until he called. His little face appeared on her computer screen this time, with that smile they shared, and it made her smile back.

“Morning, Sam,” she greeted him.

“Morning, Maya,” he replied. They talked about some this and that at first, mostly about school. There was no pretending like she couldn’t see him sidestepping the subject of home, his family, and the father they shared, like he wasn’t sure what she did or didn’t want to see or hear. There _was_ something she’d wanted, though she hadn’t managed to bring it up in any of their written exchanges. But now, maybe…

“How are the others?” she finally asked, and there was no need to elaborate who she was talking about. Their sisters, their brother…

“They’re okay,” he told her, then after a moment, “Did you… do you want me to get them?” She barely had time to say yes that he moved out of sight, dashing from his room. She could hear him calling out for his sisters. When he returned, she knew where he had run off to, as he returned with his baby brother… _their_ baby brother, she still had to correct herself. He sat back in front of his computer, with the little boy held in his arms. Maya knew he had just turned one in December, and after two sisters, having a brother had made Sam so, _so_ happy, and he had been looking after him from the day he was born. It was easy to see, the way the little one behaved in Sam’s arms… he loved his big brother very much. “Maya, this is Wyatt. Wyatt… meet our big sister,” Sam pointed to the screen, and the baby looked where he pointed. Maya waved at him, beaming. It wasn’t as though little Wyatt would understand any of this, but he would see a smiling face and smile back to it, mimicking the wave.

“Why are you yelling?” a girl’s voice was heard from out of the screen, and already feeling a burst of feelings at seeing the little one, now there was more, and she had to take a breath, before Sam’s waving turned toward the unseen presence, inciting it to come forward, and then in the next moment there were the two girls standing in frame with their brothers.

The little one had come up first, evidently curious for the face on the screen. She stood just behind Sam’s desk chair, peering up from what little height she had. This would be the five-year-old, Eliza. She looked very much like Sam, same hair color, same eyes, though the smile looked just a bit like it might have pulled from their mother. Maya could easily peg her for being generally hyperactive, but also shy around strangers. Even so, she could see her on the screen, and there seemed to be recognition for something in her eyes, like Maya was a stranger but also familiar. And if there was any wonder why, the approach of the other girl put that to rest.

Her father’s second child with his new wife was called Cara. She was eight years old, and she was as close to the spitting image of her older half-sister as she could be, without those traits Maya had received through her own mother. She’d been sort of annoyed to be called for by her brother as she’d been, pulled away from whatever she’d been doing, but then she saw Maya on the screen, and she stopped where she stood, eyes gone wide. Unlike little Eliza, she knew about their estranged half-sister, like Sam did, but clearly, she hadn’t known the two of them were in contact.

There they all were… her brothers, her sisters… Her father’s new little family… It was hard, just for a moment, not to feel the smallest pinch to her heart, but taking a deep breath, she pushed that aside, focused on them… this happy little bunch. She’d been an only child for so long, and then the twins had been born and that had just changed everything for her, and now… now she had these four, at least she had a chance to have something with them. And she wanted to have it.

Wyatt wouldn’t understand of course, not right now, but still, Maya knew deep down that, if things kept up from this day, then he just might grow up and always remember her having been a part of his life. Eliza, for her part, was big enough that they could tell her that this girl on the screen was also her sister, but it would remain to be seen whether or not she would really grasp what this meant. She was still very shy, spent the majority of the time they talked with her face poking out from the back of Sam’s chair, though Maya had a feeling by the end of it that she was starting to get the girl to come around.

And then Cara… Cara, without having to say it, had clearly wanted a big sister. And knowing that she’d known already about Maya’s existence, out there somewhere… She was looking at her now with something like trepidation, and just an edge of tears coming at the corners of her eyes. And when she’d smile, it would be that same smile again, like Sam, like Maya… If Sam had shown himself aware of the band, he hadn’t really shown himself to be inclined toward them in any particular way, but Cara, now _she_ was the TXNY super fan in the family.

There’d been no question, the first time she’d seen one of their videos, that this was their sister. Sam had told Maya how she’d wanted so bad to go to the show, at the school, but that she hadn’t been allowed to go, for no other reason than that she was only eight, and she’d been moping all week. Now to find out that her brother had actually gotten to talk to their sister, that he’d _been_ talking to her… Maya had told Sam to share her contact information with her, told Cara that she could write or call her whenever she wanted. Much like with Sam, putting any and all personal issues aside, Maya felt an instant bond to Cara… to all of them… her siblings, her blood…

When it was just Sam and her again, Maya looked at him, feeling like the whole time she’d been getting to know the others, he’d just been waiting for the chance to talk to her alone again, this thing that was new for the both of them still needing to be sort of his own. They were only getting started, and there were things he wanted to talk about, whether he knew how or not, especially now that the girls knew about their conversations. Cara might have been counted on to keep it quiet, but there was no way Eliza wouldn’t go and declare how she’d talked to her big sister on the computer, and then their parents would know… their father would know. It wasn’t like they expected this to be a problem, and it wouldn’t be, but it wouldn’t be their own secret anymore.

“Hey, Sam, you alright?” Maya asked him, trying to see if he was ready to talk. He looked at her, and she could see plainly he wasn’t ready. She could have helped him start, having a fairly good idea what he wanted to talk about, but for knowing how it had affected _her_ through the years to bring up the very thing that had allowed those four kids’ existence, their father’s abandonment of her… In the end she knew it would only be able to come about when he was ready to go.

“Yeah,” he shrugged. He looked sort of disappointed with himself, and it was one of those occasions where she hated being so far away from him.

“So, I was thinking… Do you think you could send me one of your drawings? I’d love to put it up on my wall back there,” she nodded over her shoulder. Her brother looked back at her, and he gave a proud smile.

TO BE CONTINUED


	197. Their Support Around Time

The month that followed the Basket Cases’ trip to New York, felt to all of them about as close to ‘everything back to normal’ as they could get, except for that one, glaring exception which existed in the form of Lucas’ ongoing ban from the Hunter-Hart house and his and Maya’s having to carry on their relationship as something covert in some places. She was doing well with her parents, so long as the situation didn’t come up, and she did manage not to bring it up, because for however much she didn’t like how they were treating him, she could not pretend like it didn’t keep her missing them when they were distant… And maybe, if things ran smoothly long enough, they would come around.

As they carried on into the month of March, the thing that always tended to happen around this time of year would start to be seen and felt. The end of the year was still some time away, but it was definitely closer rather than further, and for that the anticipation of summer started to creep in. They would talk of plans, and wishes… As always there were hopes of getting together with Farkle and Smackle. Of course, this year this was both for getting to see their New York friends and also for having the four members of TXNY together and the opportunity of putting together some new shows. From what they knew, Smackle had been hard at work writing new songs for them, that they might put out a second album and have a load of new things to present to their followers. This time around, she had called on Maya to pitch in some lyrics, should inspiration strike her again as it did with the song lyrics she’d once sent in the middle of the night and in subsequent collaborations.

They were also very aware that the coming summer would be their last one caught in between two years of high school. The coming fall would mark the start of their senior year, and after that… After that there’d be the trip, and then college… The closer _that_ came, the more they felt it, too. Plans seemed to be solidifying in places, adjusting in others, and still none of them knew what to expect just yet. Would they be together? Would they be pulled apart?

They couldn’t let themselves focus on this too much. They were still here, there was still so much to do… They all still had their jobs, still continued to put money aside. Maya, for her part, was so very relieved that her arm was healed and she could go along with her job at the diner… and her guitar. The trio of TXNY75 was going full steam ahead, knowing they wanted to keep their momentum going as they headed toward summer. They would try and give shows whenever they could, between school and their jobs.

It seemed as though they could not get away from things looming closer, from summer, to senior year, to the trip, to college… There was also the question of basketball. It _would_ be reinstated in the coming fall, for the first time in two years, it was official. Those of them who had been part of the team in their freshman year – six from the boys’ team, and three from the girls’ – would have to decide if they intended to try out, which seemed like an obvious answer after how much they’d fought to get it back, how much they’d wanted it, and yet… two whole years, of having to do without, of doing other things instead… It was hard to say how it would go. At the very least, beyond the nine of them, there was a whole set of younger students, like Scott Shelby, who had been chomping at the bit, waiting for their chance to play. It might have been worth it going back, just to be part of that rebirth…

Lucas had just been talking about this with Maya, the two of them texting back and forth one Sunday night in mid March. She was telling him how she couldn’t quite make up her mind, seeing as rejoining the team would mean she’d have to stop doing the Basket Cases, but then Scott would want to go anyway, and Nadine was teetering between one and the other, too, so she’d probably do whatever Maya did in the end, which would either leave them seeking one member to replace Scott, or leave Rebecca all on her own to find three more. Lucas said he was already about 95% sure he would try out again, leaving a little space for ‘what ifs.’ He also pointed out that Maya being so indecisive might just mean she really knew what she wanted to do but didn’t want to admit it, because of what it would mean for the other side.

When the doorbell rang, he stopped mid text to go and look out the window, wondering who might be coming over at this time. When he spotted a bike on the lawn and recognized whose it was, he cleared his message to replace it with telling Maya he’d get back to her in a little bit before heading down the stairs. His mother had already answered the door, letting Asher in.

“Sorry, I know it’s late, Mrs. Friar…” he was telling her, before turning to see his friend was there. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” Lucas looked to his mother, who was already closing the door, before motioning for Asher to follow him upstairs. They went into his room and Lucas shut the door. Asher stood there, looking sort of distracted.

“You okay?”

“What? Yeah, no, I… I’m fine, it’s just…” He still looked like his mind was somewhere else, which was so not how he tended to be that Lucas had to wonder if he really was okay. “Someone saw us… me and Ray… And they put it out there,” his hand swung absently toward the computer on Lucas’ desk before he looked back to his friend. “His parents found out. They kicked him out.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	198. Their Support Around Change

Maya was waiting for Lucas to reply to her again, after telling her he’d be back in a little bit, never suspecting the reason for the interruption until he replied with _Asher’s here, Ray got kicked out_ and then there was no need to ask why, nor was there any doubt what she needed to do. She went right up the stairs to find her parents. They were in the nursery, with the twins, getting them back to sleep after they’d woken up.

“I’m going to Lucas’ house right now,” she started without preamble, and before they could say anything to argue against it, she forged ahead. At this point, she had a feeling keeping the secret would be a moot point, and she had to believe they could be trusted to keep it. “You know Ray Choi, who I got the puppies from? He just got kicked out of his house because his parents found out he’s gay. Asher is at Lucas’ house right now, and he is Ray’s boyfriend. They’re both my friends, and Lucas and I were the only ones who knew about them. This is huge, and I need to be there, so I’m going…” She took a breath. “Okay?”

A stunned silence finally gave way to a look shared by her parents. Her mother got up, setting the already sleeping Gracie back in her crib.

“I’ll drive you.”

Soon after, Maya was dashing up the path toward Lucas’ house, ringing the bell and being let in by Mr. Friar, who stood at the door, waving to Katy Hart still sitting in her car, while her daughter was going up the stairs in double time. When she got up there and to the room, she was left with the impression that neither Lucas nor Asher had expected her to show up – and why would they, with the situation they were caught up in – and had briefly thought instead that it might have been Ray. Even so, when she came in, Asher stood, and he welcomed and returned the hug that she gave him.

“Where’s Ray? What happened?” she asked, looking from Asher to Lucas, who was looking at her with so much gratitude for showing up as she’d done.

“Last I heard he was crashing at Kenji’s house,” Asher told her. “I said he could come to my house, but _he_ said he didn’t want to make things worse than they already were.” In the meantime, Lucas had pulled something up on his computer screen for her to see.

It looked like a picture from someone’s phone. In it, they could clearly recognize Ray, as he stood somewhere, kissing someone. _They_ knew it would be Asher, and they could tell it was him, but in the picture they couldn’t see his face, or any distinguishing features that would have identified him unless you knew it was him. But even so, there was no denying that the person Ray was kissing in the photo was a boy. Now Maya understood what they meant about not making things worse. On the merits of that photo, Ray’s secret had been thrown out there for all to see, but Asher’s was still safe, and Ray hoped to keep it that way.

Lucas had already seen the picture, after Asher had pulled up the page to show him, but now that Maya was here, she was seeing it for the first time, and it made her stomach sink, just as much as it made her fury burn up at the thought that anyone could have done this to her friends.

“Who was it?” she asked, her voice sounding more like ‘Let me at this jerk so I can give them a piece of my mind and maybe my fist.’

“No idea,” Lucas shook his head, putting a hand to her shoulder.

“Everyone’s going to know by the time we walk into school tomorrow,” Asher spoke up now. “It’s going to be a mess, and… there’s no way I’m letting him go through that on his own.” Lucas and Maya looked at him now, starting to understand what he was getting at. “So, when Ray walks through those doors, I’m going to be walking in with him, holding his hand. I don’t care if they know about me, you know that. I only kept it to myself for his sake.” As upset as the two of them could be for their friends in that moment, there was none more upset than Asher Garcia, but his response was going to be one of love, showing any and all who cared to look that he cared much more for Ray Choi than for whatever anyone else had to say.

“We’ll be with you,” Maya promised him with a smile, as Lucas nodded along.

“I didn’t even doubt you would be,” Asher bowed his head with a small thankful smile. He let out a breath, this unexpected turn of events looking as though it had drained him. “There’s something else I need to do first, and that’s why I came here, I just… I’ve been so sure I didn’t mind telling, but now I’m about to tell my friends and… I’m nervous.”

“We’re here,” Lucas promised.

Within minutes, they were sat around Lucas’ computer, a video call connecting the three of them with Riley, and Zay, and Dylan, and Nadine, and Rebecca, and Scott. Whether any of them wanted to admit it or not, they had all seen the picture of Ray. Even so, half of them were genuinely taken by surprise when Asher revealed to them that he was the other boy in the picture, that he and Ray had been seeing each other in secret, and that he was gay, too. Those who’d had something of an inkling, and those who’d had no clue, all of them received the news in much the same way. Asher and Ray were both some of their closest friends, and if they had been little more than classmates, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. They would stand right by them, in whatever came next.

TO BE CONTINUED


	199. Their Support Around Revelations

The next morning, Maya had been up as bright and early as ever, leaving for school so early there was no chance anyone would have arrived there yet. She sat on the bench on her own for all of ten minutes though before Lucas showed up. He sat next to her, and she took his hand, looking at him and knowing he was feeling much of what _she_ had been feeling. The two of them had spent the last several months feeling this weight on their relationship, since the accident. He had been banned from her house, and they had been left to thread lightly, to hide, to sneak. And yet… it all felt sort of like they’d been complaining over nothing, when compared to what was now happening with Ray and Asher.

“Maya…” Lucas gave her arm a small tug, nodding up the path for her to look.

When she did, she found Ray was slowly walking up toward them and the school. At once she got up and dashed to meet him. She stopped in front of him for a moment before pulling him into a hug. Ray returned the embrace, neither of them moving or saying a word for a few moments before starting again, back toward the bench. As they came nearer, all Lucas could see in looking at his friend was that he looked like he hadn’t slept all that much, and that sleeplessness had left him with little more to do than to contemplate what had happened and what could still happen. He looked like he was trying not to show it though, and Lucas wouldn’t point it out.

“Did you talk to Asher? Did he tell you…”

“He did,” Ray confirmed. His voice was giving much of what his face already did.

“We’ll be there with you guys,” Maya promised him. As true as that would be for the time leading up to their all heading into class, and at lunch, too, they wouldn’t be able to be with him all through the day, with all of them a year or two behind him. But there’d be the rest of the day, and for that there’d be no doubt where they would be. And Ray knew this, and if nothing else, he looked like that one small thing was giving him at least some relief.

Asher and Joey came next, and while Joey came up at a walking pace, Asher had quickened his feet, the better to reach his boyfriend at the bench. There was no point being subtle anymore, and as Maya slid down the bench to make space, Asher dropped into the seat and pulled Ray close. Neither of them moved for a while, no one said a word. Even as they pulled back, Asher had Ray’s hand in his, and there was an unspoken assumption that he wouldn’t let go of that hand unless it became absolutely necessary.

As their friends continued to arrive, and sit or stand with them, and inquire after the state of things, other students were arriving, too, walking by them as they went. Watching them go by, Maya could see plainly how many of them looked at the two boys sat between Lucas and her. Whether they were looking because they’d seen the photo or because they were noticing the joined hands and their owners, she couldn’t say, but if they were looking at them, then they’d be seeing her, too, and the look on _her_ face warned anyone who’d dare to say or do anything harmful to her friends and to just keep on walking.

When the time came for them all to head into the school, it was as a mass that they went, with Asher and Ray surrounded by Maya, Lucas, Nadine, Zay, Dylan, Riley, Rebecca, Joey, and Scott. They sent one clear message to anyone who saw them, and there was no doubt… everyone saw them. There was no telling what this would end up meaning to those who saw them, just as there was no delusion of this solving any possibility of problems along the way, but all that mattered to them in that moment was to show the truth of the matter, which was that they were and would be by their friends’ side, and anyone who’d mess with them would have to deal with the lot of them, too.

As they finally came to splinter off to their first period classes, Maya and Lucas stopped outside of French class, watching Asher and Ray go off on their own down the hall. Asher would walk with Ray to his first class before doubling back to his own.

“All I can think about is there’s someone out here who started this, who took that picture and put it out there like it was nothing,” Maya let out a breath, looking around the hallway like she could just tell by looking at those boys and girls walking along.

“I know,” Lucas gave her hand a squeeze. “We might not find out who it was. All we can do right now is what we’ve been doing, I guess…” Even as he said it, he felt like it wouldn’t be enough. For his part, there was something he’d been thinking about for a while already, since he’d found out Ray and Asher’s secret, their situation. Maybe now it would be time to look into it further. How long would Ray be allowed to stay at Kenji’s before he had to move on? Where would he go after that?

“I’ll see Asher in second period, I’ll ask if he and Ray want to hang out this afternoon, okay?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Lucas agreed, coming out of his thoughts to look back at her before they walked into their classroom to start the day.

TO BE CONTINUED


	200. Their Support Around Friends

Much as the day hadn’t been nearly as bad as they might have imagined it could be, when it was all finally over, every one of them felt just a little drained, like they’d been bracing all day and could now finally let go. Before long, Maya’s plan to go and hang out with the two of their friends, who might have had the most tiring day out of all of them, turned into all of them converging on the Garcia house after school was out. They all spread out around the den, and it was clear none of them was entirely sure what to do now, whether Ray or Asher might want to talk about anything else but their day or their situation, or if instead they actually wanted to open up to their friends. Finally, it came down to Ray to make the choice.

“Guys, it’s okay,” he told them. He still sounded so tired, but at the same time, with all of them there, he seemed just a bit happier than he’d done that morning. “It really means a lot, what you did. Not that I had any doubt you’d be there for me… for us,” he looked to Asher at his side. After so long of having included Ray into the group without most of them knowing why, after the two of them had found ways to be covert about everything… To see them make no attempt of covering or hiding actually just seemed like it made so much sense, that it was any wonder they hadn’t seen it before.

“How… how did it go here, with your parents, did you…” Maya got around to asking.

“Yeah, last night, after I got back from going to see Lucas,” Asher explained.

Lucas knew, and Maya, too, how Asher had finally told Joey, only a few weeks ago. After keeping the secret from his brother for so long, it might have been that Joey would have been upset for being kept in the dark, but then that just wasn’t him. He’d taken things in stride, and that had been something of a weight off of Asher’s shoulders, although there still remained their parents, their family.

“According to them they’d sort of figured it out already, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but either way… we’re alright,” he explained, showing something almost like regret, looking to his boyfriend at his side, knowing how _not_ alright it had gone for him. But Ray was nothing but happy for him, and it showed.

“Are you going back to Kenji’s tonight?” Nadine asked Ray.

“Yeah,” he nodded, though there was some unspoken layer to his tone that made them guess it was still very much a temporary situation, and his future lodgings remained up in the air.

“You’re welcome at our house anytime,” Dylan assured him.

“And ours,” Lucas jumped in.

“Ditto,” Nadine smiled. One by one, homes were offered out to him, down to Scott, who pointed out that with all his siblings and some of them moved out on their own as they were, they had more beds than they knew what to do with anyway. Ray took in all these offers with growing gratitude and was just shy of tears.

“Were there any problems today?” Rebecca asked. “Other than that mess at lunch?”

They’d just about expected that to be the time anything would happen, and it hadn’t disappointed, if they could call it that. All those who had been on their tail about basketball being cancelled two years back now seemed to have migrated to slurs and bad jokes. Their two targets being closed in with their group as they were, they found themselves talking at nothing, as no one around the table gave them the time of day, though there was some concern about what would happen when either Asher or Ray became cornered on their own. Maya, who was in the same classes as Asher from second period through fifth before being parted from him for sixth, reunited in seventh, and parted again for last, had been walking around with him like she’d introduce them to ‘a little bit of New York’ if they came near her friend. There’d been no coming at him all day. But they couldn’t know with Ray, his being a senior and all. He hadn’t said anything at lunch, except what he said again here.

“It was fine,” he shrugged. “I had Stevie and Rene, they’re as unflappable as it comes, I think it kind of discouraged anyone.” That much could have been true, or he could have been covering. Either way, it wasn’t in any of them to pry if he didn’t want to say.

That was one day down, and none of them was under the assumption that it would all be over just because they’d made it through that one. There was little more they could do at this point but keep on getting up, keep on showing up, and keep on living their lives as they would live them. Whatever problems came along, they would face them, because that was what they did.

Before they’d all gone their separate ways, and for the sake of clearing their heads, they had reconvened in the yard, tossing a ball around. For that little while, they were just themselves, a bunch of tightly knit friends, hanging around together, laughing, having fun. There were no problems allowed here, not that they gave them any mind. Instead, it was all about seeing which team would win out. They were all playing today, no sideline cheerleaders, and before long it was anyone’s guess if they were really playing or just laughing at whatever funny thing happened next, like Riley ‘unleashing the rage’ or Nadine clambering on Zay’s back to stop him scoring and his trying and failing to sound like he was upset about it. In time, they _had_ gone on home, though it was with a lighter head than they’d had coming in. Tomorrow was another day…

TO BE CONTINUED


	201. Their Support Around Difficulties

Getting back home that afternoon after being with her friends over at the Garcia house, Maya felt like she was just drained. It wasn’t physical, but she was still just plain exhausted. This whole thing, with Asher and Ray, it wasn’t even about her, didn’t affect her personally, except in some ways it did. It was hurting two of her dearest friends, and that made it personal in its own way. She could only give the best of herself to stand by their side, but after that it still felt like she needed to let out something, to shout, to hit… whoever it was that had outed Ray. She knew it wouldn’t fix anything, but it was all she could think about.

“How was school?” her father asked when he saw her come in, his voice showing plainly he was all too familiar with the feeling inside her right now. It got her deviating from where she’d been headed – her room – to go and sit with him in the living room, to help him fold the mountain of baby laundry to return to the nursery.

“The classes, fine,” she grumbled, trying to absorb some of the inexplicable joy of holding a pair of very small socks covered in ducklings. “All the parts before and between and after though…” One pair of socks, two pairs and three… Ducks and puppies and stars… “We were all over at Asher’s just now,” she told him. To her father’s credit, he didn’t bring up Lucas and _that_ situation. Of course, noticing that he hadn’t only made her think about it, and… No, she wasn’t going to go there, not now.

“How’s he doing? How’s Ray?” How were they… Was there any other way for them to be?

“Asher, he’s solid. Nothing sticks to him, whatever anyone says… But then he worries for Ray, _that’s_ where it hurts for him.” Seeing that helpless little look in his eyes, knowing there was much less that she could do than what she wished she could do, that was where the punchy feeling started to bloom in her chest. “And then Ray…”

Ray was just so much more… quiet. Not that he had been bursting and loud before, but he was so lost in his thoughts it seemed, and so long as he was down there, on the outside all they could see was so much sadness. He’d told her and Lucas about how he’d been almost sure something like this would happen when his family found out about him, but… Well, maybe a part of her had just hoped it wouldn’t come to that and she’d just put all the power she could into it, like it would somehow influence the outcome. Maybe it would have been different, if he’d gotten to do it on his own time, not like this… or maybe it would have been exactly this. And all that just brought her right back to where she’d been. Punchy feelings all around. She looked at the baby clothes again, thought of her sisters wearing them. Sweet, happy and carefree little Nellie and Gracie… She took a deep breath, sighed.

When there were no more clothes to fold, she retreated down to the basement, dropping onto her bed, face down in her mattress for a beat before flipping on to her back and staring at the ceiling.

Thinking about Ray and Asher, as much as their issues were their own, and what she was caught up in was a whole other thing, she’d end up thinking about Lucas and her, whether she meant to or not. Seeing how it affected them, how it would probably only find new ways to affect them over time, it filled her with this sly sort of anguish, and then all she could think about was Lucas, about wanting to see him, to have him near so she might hold him, be held by him. And then she’d have to think about the ban, and how she’d had to find a way to live with it. There wasn’t any sign of things changing for her parents, and it seemed like this need for contact made everything feel big again, made the old ache of this thing with her and her parents and Lucas feel red and raw all over again. It didn’t matter that she’d forced herself to live with it; it hadn’t been right then and it wasn’t right now. She’d been so sure that by now… by now… But nothing was changing, and she didn’t know how much longer she could handle it.

She sighed, rubbing at her face with both hands. She couldn’t dwell there. There were more important things to focus on right now. Like Asher, and Ray. She still really felt like she needed to know who’d done it, who’d seen them, taken the picture, and put it out for everyone to see, but then… Oh, what would it change? The secret wouldn’t get unspoken, it wouldn’t make Mr. & Mrs. Choi change their minds. Maybe Ray would prefer just moving on, putting it in the past… maybe he wanted to know, too. She couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened at lunch. Much as they’d expected something, for it to actually happen, to hear what some of those guys had said… That was just one day… one time, where they’d been out in the open, with friends. She still couldn’t shake this fear like at some point something would happen and they couldn’t do a thing to stop it.

After a while, she reached for her phone, quickly sending off a text to both the boys with a simple message, one they might have already known but still could do with repeating: _Night or day._ She had no doubt they understood. No matter when they needed her, or wanted to talk, she was there. Before long, they had both replied, with thanks, with understanding. What more could she give at this point?

TO BE CONTINUED


	202. Their Support Around Needs

The thought had been playing at the back of his mind since the night before, when Asher had come over and told him about what had happened with Ray’s parents. He had been thinking about it all today, too, at school, then at Asher’s house, and now again back at his own house. And by this point, there was just no doubt left. Whether or not this would work out, he didn’t know, and he wouldn’t it mention to any of the group unless he came away with a positive, but he had to try.

He waited until dinner time, where it would be him and his parents all together, and then he started in, working his way toward his proposal. He had to start, first, by revealing the situation to them. They had been there when Asher had shown up the night before, sure, but they still didn’t know what the reason for his visit had been. So, he started to tell them.

“I wanted to talk to you guys about something.” His mother and father looked up at him, looked at each other with that silent talk parents seemed to have, and he had to cut in before they went and got any ideas. “It’s not about me,” he explained, and they turned to him again. “It’s about Asher… and Ray…” He hesitated, just a bit, about telling them, about sharing this secret, but he had to. Or at least he thought he did. As soon as he said their names, he caught the slightest sign of recognition in both their faces, like… “Wait, you know?”

“Without confirmation, the best you could say would be that we guessed,” his father informed him.

“It was very easy to tell,” his mother jumped in, like of course it was. “And they are very sweet together,” she went on, smiling. Lucas would say he couldn’t believe this, but then… No, it made sense. Of course, they’d pick up on it. That they’d kept it to themselves was equally expectable. It actually made the next part a bit easier to get into.

“The thing is… someone found out about them, and they posted a picture on the internet. Ray’s parents found out about it, and then… they kicked him out of the house.” This piece of news they had not been aware of, and it showed in the stunned looks on their faces. His father shook his head in disbelief, while his mother seemed to start tearing up, both of them shocked that Mr. & Mrs. Choi would turn their back on their son like this.

“Where is Ray now?” his father asked.

“He’s staying at Kenji’s for now, but… He won’t be able to stay there for more than a couple days, and after that he’ll have to go somewhere else, and he might have to keep going somewhere else, and I was thinking… well… There’s the spare bed in my room, and I know you guys never shy from having people stay with us for weeks and months, and I realize this would be different, but I’d been thinking, maybe…”

Again, there’d been a beat of his mother and father looking to one another, although this time it lasted all of three seconds before Melinda Friar was reaching for her phone to call Mrs. Yamada and to ask if it would be alright if the three stopped by in about an hour’s time. As this was happening, Tom Friar looked to his son, telling him to reach out to Ray, alerting him they would be going to Kenji’s house to see him and talk to him after dinner.

Just like that, without anyone ever saying the words, it had been decided. Ray would be coming to stay with them, and not just for a couple days. He could stay as long as he needed. He was heading to college in the fall, and what would happen after that point would have to be figured out once they got there, but for now, this was happening. In their immediate readiness to step in, Lucas didn’t know that he’d ever been happier to call the two of them his parents.

Before he knew it, they were off to Kenji’s house, and when they arrived there, Lucas found himself sitting with Kenji and Ray for a while, as his parents and Kenji’s spoke together. After that, his parents came around and asked to talk with Ray. Lucas didn’t get to hear either conversation, but by the time both were done, it had been decided, and Ray would be coming back home with them. Once it had been decided, Lucas finally wrote to Maya to let her know, even as he could see Ray – with something of a glow returned to his face – tapping at his phone with a smile that told him he was telling Asher, too.

He could just hear Maya’s voice in his head when he read her reply. She was so happy, so relieved. He didn’t doubt every last one of them would have rather seen things go very differently, would have wanted Ray to be accepted by his family and not turned out of home as he’d been, but there was no changing that now, and he would be in a good place. That on its own may not fix everything, but looking at him again, as they drove off toward home, Lucas could tell himself with some security that it was at least fixing some things.

TO BE CONTINUED


	203. Their Support Around Solutions

The rest of the week, after the chaos of Monday, sort of felt like a whirlwind in comparison. It was as Maya had told her father, classes were classes, it was the in-between times that shaped how her days went, and for all of them it was mostly that, too. There had been a couple of instances in classes, one she’d been able to witness, the other not, where Ray and Asher’s revelations were brought to light with some comment or another, though they’d never been allowed to expand too far. And then outside of class… The less said about the behavior of some of their classmates the better. None of it had been too serious up to this point, and they could only hope it would stay that way.

Ray’s life in the Friar house over those first few nights had been good. He was almost overly proper to Mr. & Mrs. Friar, always picking up after himself, offering to help wherever he could. After a while, Lucas’ mother had stopped him, told him to quit acting like he was a guest in this house. It was home, and he was just a boy, and while she appreciated manners, she also appreciated that these were his last months in high school and he needed to enjoy himself.

“I can’t imagine you did too much of that, hiding secrets like you had to,” she’d tipped her head with a smile.

Somehow, this declaration had been concluded with his mother deciding they would go to the mall on Saturday morning to pick up some things and give Ray a chance to ‘personalize his space.’ Lucas was already envisioning them returning with three armfuls of bags. He’d had to tell Ray there was really no point telling her it wasn’t necessary, she was going to do it anyway, so at least now he’d get to have a say in it. That might have been the moment he’d really started to accept the place as his new home.

Maya had wanted to come along with them on this shopping spree of course, and so did Asher, and so it was the four of them and Lucas’ parents on Saturday, taking to the mall in search of ‘Ray’s space’ and whatever else they might have found to expand on what little he’d carried away from his parents’ home and his old room.

They moved from store to store, and much as Melinda Friar didn’t seem to give any notice to Ray’s shy reluctance over her wanting to buy him so many things, seeing the place it came from for her to offer it, wanting to build up his presence in the house meant that eventually he _would_ tell her ‘which one he liked best’ of the things she’d show him. Soon morning turned into a lunch break, and then one more hour after that, before they all finally made way for the house again and unloaded their purchases, the four friends taking charge of the many bags on their way up to the boys’ room.

Lucas had not batted an eye at the prospect of their making changes in the room. He’d seen it as part of the deal when he’d made the suggestion to his parents about bringing Ray into their home. Now it wasn’t just ‘his room,’ it was ‘their room,’ and they brought all the bags in, figuring out where and how they would put everything.

“I still say some nice wall shelves,” Maya would tell the three boys. “I happen to be very skilled at installing them,” she added, throwing a smile to her boyfriend, who could only smile back and confirm the claim with a nod.

“He wasn’t looking anywhere while we were going through those aisles, I think,” Asher pointed out with a knowing smirk. “Didn’t want Lucas’ mom to think he wanted anything out of there.” Ray couldn’t very well deny it, although he gave Asher a look for pointing it out.

“Probably for the best,” Lucas nodded, and Ray’s face relaxed into a smile when the statement made Asher tap his arm as though to say ‘there, see?’

“And it allowed _me_ to sneak away on a mission to get this…” Maya moved to pull something from one of the bags. The object, which at first was believed to be a book, hastily ‘wrapped’ in fliers found around the mall, was unveiled as a simple picture frame, inside which had been placed a photo of Ray and Asher together. “Asked him to send me one if he had any,” Maya explained, nodding to Asher. “Thought you might like to be able to have one on display for once.” The way Ray smiled as he looked at the picture, and the way he set it on the nightstand by his bed, they knew he absolutely did like displaying an image of him and his boyfriend for any and all to see, and for him to look at as he sat around, in his room.

The ‘unpacking’ continued in earnest now. Among the things the Friars had bought for Ray, there were new sheets and a new spread for the bed, as well as some extras to swap out, so he would have whatever color and material he preferred. There were some new clothes (for a new start, always important, so claimed Mrs. Friar), which would soon hang in the closet, in the space opened up for him to use. There had been a brief moment where a second desk had almost been bought, though they’d managed to sidestep that one within the reasoning that even Lucas had a tendency to do his homework at his desk only half the time, the rest of the time being either on his bed, on the floor, downstairs in the dining room, or somewhere else entirely. And Ray was graduating soon, after which he’d have any number of other places for homework and studying, so… no desk. They _had_ relented when it came to a small ‘two squares by two squares’ bookshelf, which was placed near Ray’s bed, and this was filled with his school things, a few figurines, and a plant… Mrs. Friar had talked him into getting a plant.

By the time this was all done, the quartet settled down to relax after their exhaustive but productive day. They sat on the ground, in the space between the beds, Lucas and Maya to one side, against his bed, and the same for Ray and Asher on the other side. They looked around the room, at the things which had been added, the things which had been moved… The difference wasn’t nearly as jarring as one might have thought it would be. Everything looked well in its place, and it did feel, more than ever, like it was both of their room.

“What are we going to do when Farkle comes over?” Maya wondered aloud.

“My mother will get a third bed, probably,” Lucas joked, even though that was probably what she would genuinely do.

Dash came walking into the room then, momentarily hesitating at the door like she felt something was changed and she didn’t know what to do. But then Lucas called to her and she came running up, saw Maya, and settled at her feet, much to the blonde’s amusement. The dog’s presence had been another thing to help Ray settle into the Friar house. He so missed his own dog, still down at his parents’ house. There had already been some talk of their attempting to reclaim the dog, bring it over to join Dash and the family, though whether or not they’d manage to pull it off was still off in the realm of the unknown.

It had almost been a week, would be, the next day, since this had all started. Ray hadn’t heard from or spoken to his parents in all that time and he didn’t know whether _they_ were looking to change that, but for what they’d seen and heard from him, they knew Ray was not seeking to reach out to them. He’d known this would happen to so near a certainty, known it for a reason, because he knew how his parents were. He knew them enough to know there would be no going back on what they believed or what they’d done, and he wasn’t looking to put himself back into that situation. He was good here, now. The reveal had needed to come sooner or later, and now it had and, as Melinda Friar had told him, he needed to enjoy himself, needed to enjoy the end of his high school days. He would do that, with his boyfriend, with Lucas, and Maya, and all of their friends… and he would begin again.

TO BE CONTINUED


	204. Their Need to Talk

How they found themselves on the last days of April so soon, none of them could say. School was ramping up, the end of the year approaching at an increasing pace every day, leaving little time for anything so insubstantial as the passing of days and weeks. It was already taking up much of the hours where they weren’t in class, as they still all had their jobs, and anything from quiz team to band things to family and friends and boyfriends and girlfriends all had to queue up for their share of what remained, as small as it sometimes was.

That day, somehow, Maya and Riley had managed to sit together and work on their song together. It had been Maya’s idea. She was already working with Smackle, here and there, on the new album’s songs, where she would provide lyrics and Smackle would do up the music that turned it from words on a page to something real, something they couldn’t wait to hear, and to perform. And while Nadine declared herself absolutely untalented as far as song writing went, Maya had sensed an unspoken desire in her best friend to try her hand at it. So, she’d made the suggestion. They would collaborate, the two of them together. Riley, naturally, had jumped at the chance.

It hadn’t been so easy to get started, to find what the song would be about, how they would construct it, what would be their hook… For a long while they just laid there on Riley’s bed, the girl in question with her head on the left side with her feet dangling over the right, while her blond friend had her head on the right, feet dangling over the left. They stared at the ceiling, every so often tossing random ideas to one another, which they would either shoot down immediately, or try and expand on before hitting a wall. They were getting nowhere.

There should have been something, shouldn’t there? It wasn’t as though their lives were uneventful. Sure, their primary actions these days involved sitting in class, or studying, or – thankfully – sleeping, when they weren’t off at the cinema, or the theater, or the museum, or the diner. Parent drama was running rampant around them… Maya was getting acquainted with half-siblings she’d never spoken to before… Two of their friends were now out and openly known as a couple… Ray was now fully part of the Friar house and family… Dash was getting along splendidly with her new friend and roommate, Billie, recently reacquired from the Choi house, much to Ray’s joy… None of it was giving them the inspiration they needed though, much as they tried on some, while they dismissed others.

“Can’t find a song, gotta find a song…” Maya would sing out, making Riley laugh before tacking on her own lyric.

“No words, no words, gotta find the words…” she intoned dramatically, and Maya exploded into giggles, rolling to her side. Riley did the same, so they might look to each other.

“We’re fantastic song writers,” Maya declared, and Riley nodded as though to say ‘yeah we are.’ “I can just see all the awards rolling in…” she motioned.

“I’d like to thank the fans…” Riley pretended to wipe tears from her eyes. “And my bandmates…”

“Aww, thanks, Honey…” Maya patted her arm before returning to her ceiling gazing with a sigh. “Maybe I’m just not made for sitting down and saying, ‘now I’m going to write a song.’ It just kind of comes right when I don’t expect it.”

“How does Smackle even do it?” Riley wondered, turning on to her back, too.

“I have stopped trying to understand the way Isadora Smackle’s brain works. It’s a little scary to think how brilliant she is sometimes,” Maya smiled.

“She said she wanted to see if our sound was going to change, with the new album. Do we have a sound?” Riley asked.

“Well, our songs feel like our songs, so I guess we do.”

“We’ll be in our senior year soon, and college… So much is going to change… already it’s changing…” Riley spoke, sounding like she was trying not to come off too afraid of the big bad unknown future.

“It is…” Maya could only reply, her mind turning in on itself, thinking about recent weeks. When she didn’t speak on for a little while, Riley turned to look at her like she could sense there was something there, brewing under the surface.

“Did something happen?” she asked, at once turned from playful brainstorming, to thoughtful, and now to intrigued friend. Maya knew Riley could pick up on any little tells from her just like she might miss them, too, but with her friend’s full attention on her, it was more likely that whatever she did or said next would be caught up and analyzed. Even then, she tried to evade, turning her head to meet Riley’s gaze as the other girl had once again turned to her side to look at her.

“What?” she asked, like she hadn’t heard her.

“Something happened,” Riley declared now instead of asking.

“Something?” Maya repeated, shaking her head like she wasn’t following her. Riley sighed, sitting up, and Maya wondered if it would be bad form to get up and run away, especially as now, the more Riley kept on staring at her, the more it felt as though her face would betray her if she didn’t look away. Oh, there went her cheeks, and the corners of her mouth, and oh, how her eyes tried to turn before it was too late… She could practically feel the moment Riley made the leap in her head, somehow not for the first time, only this time… this time…

“Maya…” her voice beckoned, a whisper that sounded like the most repressed shout. “Did you?” Riley gripped her shoulder, insisting. “Did you?”

TO BE CONTINUED


	205. Their Need to Mend

_Two weeks ago_

He was going to do it. It had his stomach in knots just thinking about it, and he was pretty sure he was breaking into cold sweats, too, but it had been far too long a wait and now… he just had to go for it. He was going to try and talk to her parents. This ban, this cursed ban… it just had to end, and he would do anything for it to happen… including this battle against his nerves as he walked up her street. He had showered, dressed and done his hair as though he was going in for the most important make-or-break interview of his life, and he just hoped he wasn’t developing sweat stains under his arms. His throat felt dry, and he was muttering under his breath, trying to figure out what he would say, the entire time he made his way up the street. He probably looked ridiculous.

He hadn’t told Maya about this. He didn’t want it to look like they were scheming, wanted to show initiative when he went to them. They knew him, for four years they had shown every sign of liking him very much, and then… then the accident had happened. Now he had gone and tumbled miles below where he’d even been as a new person who’d come into Maya’s life after she’d moved into Austin with her mother. He was the enemy, he was the one who’d nearly gotten her killed for his carelessness. He hadn’t held their choice against them then, and he probably still didn’t, but then… he just needed Maya back, the way they’d been before… and he knew she needed it, too. It was for the both of them.

By pure chance, she was up in the living room, walking around with little Nellie in her arms, when he came just far enough up the street that someone standing at the window – as she did – could see him and recognize him. She gasped, looking down to her little sister, eight months old now and just as sunny as the day she was born, and she carefully balanced her to one arm while she dug her phone from her pocket with the other, and rather than pretending like she could text fast enough with her sister in one arm, she called him instead, watching until he stopped and took out his phone. He couldn’t know that she could see him, and all she could do was look at him and read his expression. He looked at the screen, where he’d be staring at a picture of the two of them from the carriage ride last Christmas, and he had that determined look on his face that told her he was planning to do something and wouldn’t be talked out of it. She knew she’d seen it right when, rather than picking up, he stuck the phone back in his pocket. If he talked to her, he might chicken out.

“Dam… sels,” her eyes darted to her sister before hurrying to go and set her down back in the nursery where Gracie was still napping at the moment. She moved over to the door, trying not to look as sneaky as she felt, with her mother sitting on the couch with some papers for the theater, and her father at the perpetual laundry pile folding next to her. She stepped outside just as he was passing the house next door and she hurried to intercept him. “Lucas Friar, you realize when your phone rings you’re supposed to answer it? What are you doing here?” she asked, looking over her shoulder for a moment.

“You know what I’m doing… here,” he told her, and she sighed. She really did know, all the more reason to try and stop him. It wasn’t that she didn’t want him to do this, do something, and if it all worked out for the best then it would be the best thing in a long time, but… but if it didn’t work… For so long she’d been cautious about this, not stepping too far out of line, and testing the waters now and again, to see if maybe, somehow, they were starting to soften to the idea of him again, so that when the time was right she would find a way to get them to listen, but this… They weren’t ready, she knew they weren’t, and if it all went badly, then… “Maya, I have to.”

“I know you think you do, but think of the consequences, think of what might happen if they still won’t…”

“I have to try,” he insisted, and much as it should have made her want to sigh and bow her head, it only reminded her of why she loved him, of who he was as a person, and she knew there was no chance of convincing him to turn and go home. So, throwing her destiny to whatever may come next, she just stretched on to her toes, holding his face in her hands and kissing him, giving him an encouraging smile.

When she lowered her feet back down, she saw his eyes move past her, and turning her head to look again, she knew this time they were there. Her mother and father both stood just outside the open door, and they were looking at the two of them, standing on the sidewalk.

“Still convinced?” she asked him in a low voice.

“Yes, absolutely.”

“Terrified?” she asked. He cleared his throat.

“Yes, absolutely.”

Her hand went to find his as they started back to the house. If he was going to face the music, then she would go with him, the two of them one united front. They had to think positive, they had to… It wouldn’t change anything, probably, but at this point they could only throw every last bit of luck, real or imagined, on their side.

TO BE CONTINUED


	206. Their Need to Breathe

_Two weeks ago_

Monday morning, she had been up and out of the house under a sky that still felt like it was spreading out the early sunshine, easing out of the night. At no time had they said anything about when or where or whether to meet, but she hoped deep down that they both knew each other enough to have figured it out on their own. She made it to the school about as fast as she ever could, short of running the entire way, and when she got there, she let out a breath. There he was, sat on the bench, waiting.

As she approached, he looked up and saw her. He stood up from the bench, pulling her into his arms even as she reached him. For a moment, neither of them said or did anything except what they were doing now. Just standing together, just holding one another… trying to keep from breaking down, thinking of the mess that had been the attempt into mending the break between her parents and him. They hadn’t even been able to talk since then… They’d taken her phone again.

“You were right, I shouldn’t have…” he closed his eyes, his face in her hair.

“No, I’m glad you did,” she assured him. “Not for the rest, just… that you were willing to.”

“Are you okay?” he asked. She didn’t reply, and he didn’t have to wait for an answer further than this one. “I just wish… I wish they’d at least let me try…”

They hadn’t. They hadn’t even let him into the house, hadn’t heard him out. They’d called Maya back into the house and they’d shut the door when she’d finally had no choice but to go. They’d left him standing there, in his dress shirt and combed hair. He didn’t know what had happened next, though she told him about it now. She told him how she’d just breezed back down to the basement, not wanting to see them or hear from them in that moment. She told him how, all at once, it felt like they’d reverted to months ago, to her barely being able to look them in the face or say anything to them. She told him how, much as it was all she could do not to yell at them, when she was on her own, down in the basement, it had made her cry, and every time she’d try to stop, it would only keep going. He hugged her just a bit tighter when she said it.

He hadn’t exactly had the best of weekends after being forced to turn and start back for home either. He’d told himself going into this that there was a chance something like this would happen, that they wouldn’t so much as let him talk, or that they would yell at him, something… But to have it actually happen had hurt more than he’d expected. He’d gone back home, thankful that his parents were out, and Ray was out to meet Asher, so that by the time anyone came back, he had time to at least change, and sit, and just try to make himself behave normal enough. He didn’t want to have to tell them, didn’t want to turn this into another thing. He wasn’t sure how successful he’d been, but either way here they were. Monday morning had come, and he’d just needed to get to that bench, to get to her. And she’d come.

It felt in that moment like they’d both been just quietly brave all this time, seeing light at the end of a tunnel, even if they couldn’t say how long that tunnel was, but now… It had been six months… Half a year of this, and after what had happened outside her house, they were left to wonder, as hard as it was to think about it, whether there really had been a light, or if they’d been fooling themselves the entire time.

What if they never came around? What if they would always have to be two separate entities, Lucas here, the parents there, and Maya, caught in the middle? It just couldn’t be, it couldn’t, but…

“I don’t know what to do…” she admitted, and, hearing the tremble in her voice like she was about to cry, his hands started rubbing at her back.

“I…” he started, trying to say something, but the words weren’t coming. What could he even say at this point? What could he say that they hadn’t already said, that could make either of them feel better? There was the truth, unchanged in all of this, of course. “I love you,” he reminded her. “I’m not going anywhere. No matter what.”

“I love you, too… and I know… Right now, it means everything.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. How many times had they faced this thing, looming over their heads, the two of them and the possibility of being forced apart? It hadn’t been true before, and even here, there were limits. Short of removing Maya from the state of Texas, they couldn’t do it, and even then… After a little while, he could hear her sniffing, like she was trying to pull herself together, and then she looked up at him. “Friday night,” she said.

“What about it?”

“We’re going out, on a date… Capital D Date,” she told him, and he had to smile, thinking back to when they’d just been starting, the two of them, the distinction they had created, big Dates and little dates…

“What about your…” he started to ask, but she shook her head.

“Capital D, you hear me? I’m putting on a dress, the kind I don’t wear to school because it’s too fancy. Hair, makeup, everything. And you’re putting on a suit, with a tie, with your hair like you had it on Saturday. All of it. They can ground me for a month for all I care. You in?”

“Always,” he nodded, and seeing her let out a breath, he knew. This Date would be holding her through the week.

TO BE CONTINUED


	207. Their Need to Meet

_One week ago_

All week it seemed like they’d been setting the pieces in motion, all to make it to Friday, to the Date. The hardest part in this case didn’t involve deciding what to wear or how to look, no. If they were to be forced into sneaking around behind her parents’ backs to see each other as they deserved to see each other, then they were going to pull out all the stops and sneak like pros. That meant, in part, not looking like they were planning all along. Maya wouldn’t bring up the fact that she was going anywhere until Friday itself, writing to alert her parents she was going to the library to study. In the meantime, she would make it very evident, every time they saw her, that she had a lot of work to do for school. That wasn’t too much of a stretch, she really did have a lot to do, and having to account for the night of the date and the time she could have used there meant that she had even more to do on the other nights. By Friday, a journey to the library would feel warranted.

In the meantime, she worked to bring in all necessary items, dress, shoes, accessories, makeup and other products, to put in her locker at school, bit by bit, on the four mornings from Tuesday to Friday. She’d have to revert to ‘casual Maya’ before heading home after the Date, but that had already been factored into the plans. Both Asher and Ray were on standby to be her alibi on Friday; they had jumped at the chance.

Things were no better at her house. She’d gotten her phone back on Wednesday, but that made no difference. She just couldn’t look at them right now without seeing the look on Lucas’ face when she’d had to leave him there on the sidewalk, right before they’d shut the door.

She wasn’t going to think about this now. Finally, it was Friday, and as her last class of the day came to an end, it was time to get moving. The bag had been retrieved from her locker and, leaving the school, she went with Asher to his house, where she went into transformation mode. In little to no time, she was no longer school girl Maya, instead turned into Date night Maya, in a yellow dress that lit her up and made her look a lot happier than she’d been feeling on the inside. Hair was done, and makeup, on went the necklace, the earrings, the bracelet, and finally, the shoes, and she was ready. Asher had greeted her turn in calling her Cinderella and wishing her ‘a great time at the ball.’

With the order for Capital D Date material outfits, they were not about to go for dinner at Ma Maggie’s or any of their other favorite places around the neighborhood. And there’d be no driving either, so they could only go so far, mindful of the fact they weren’t supposed to be there at all, if anyone asked. Either way, they decided on where to go, and though she had told him she didn’t need him to pick her up, he had insisted that, this being a Date, it was everything in style or they’d be missing the mark. So, he came to get her, escorting her for a ‘scenic tour aboard our chariot… the city bus.’ She wholeheartedly agreed to join him, and they had been the fanciest people on that bus in both look and character, leaving them laughing to themselves as they walked from the bus and to the restaurant.

Sitting down at their table, settling into their Date proper, there was a moment, inevitable as anything, where they couldn’t help but remember how they’d ended up here, how they were essentially defying the ban by being here, and they’d have to go on pretending like this night had never happened, like she had been at the library, and he had been at home, anywhere. But then even without saying it aloud, they’d stopped and made the decision for themselves, that they were going to have a good time, and they wouldn’t think about the mechanics of how they’d had to set this night up like some covert mission. They were here, they had cranked up on the looks (seeing the look on his face when he’d walked in at Asher’s had been worth everything to her, and for him, to see the unrestrained smile on _her_ face…), and they were going to enjoy themselves.

They talked about school, and the impending finals. They talked about the museum and the diner, sharing any interesting stories from their respective jobs. And Maya told Lucas she had decided she _would_ try out for basketball in the fall. Hearing it, he smiled, telling her how he’d hoped she would, and that he would also be getting back into the game. He even dared to let out the call they would give to one another, when one was in the stands and one was on the court, to let the other know they were there. He hadn’t done it as loud as in the gym, but still loud enough that a few people sitting around them startled, and she just started laughing.

In due time, much as they had not been looking forward to it, the dinner was done, dessert and all, and they now needed to start thinking about the return home, which involved their changing back to how they’d looked before. Even he, going home, could never pretend like he had been anywhere else than exactly where he’d been if he came through the door looking the way he did, with his suit and tie. They ended up in adjoining bathrooms in the gas station convenience store, ‘going in fancy and coming out drab’ as she put it, although he insisted that she would always be beautiful whichever way she went.

TO BE CONTINUED


	208. Their Need to Try

_One week ago_

He insisted to walk her home. As he put it, whether or not he was risking another freeze out, he still wanted to make sure she got home safe, so he would go with her. She gladly accepted, and so they got on the bus, with their bags of Date gear over their shoulders. He offered to take hers home with him, and feeding her things back to her bit by bit through the week, just as she had done bringing them into school, and she told him she would take him up on this offer, too, although she would carry it herself until they made it to her house.

Walking up the street, the closer they got to her house, it felt like they needed to slow down the nearer they came to it. At some point, if he didn’t want to be seen, he’d have to stop and let her go on alone. When they reached that point, she turned on her heel to face him, that sort of bittersweet look creeping in her eyes. He leaned in to kiss her right then, wanting nothing more than to chase that look away. They stood there for half a minute, locked in that kiss, before they finally had to step back and look to one another again.

“See you on Monday?” he asked.

“Talk to you tomorrow,” she countered, and he let out a breath, taking her bag as she held it out to him and, with a short wave, started walking on toward her house, with only her schoolbag now, as she returned ‘from the library.’ He stayed where he stood until she got up to her door, until she took out her key and went inside, and then he turned to start on the way home.

Not a minute later, he heard someone running behind him, and he had a split thought of Shawn Hunter coming at him after busting Maya on her trip to the library that wasn’t that at all. But it wasn’t him. It was Maya again, and when she got to him, she clasped his hand.

“What are you…” he started to ask.

“They’re not here, come on,” she pulled on his arm, so he might follow her back to the house.

“But what about…” he hesitated.

“My parents and my sisters are not there. It’s been half a year since I’ve gotten to just hang out with you in my house and that’s what I want to do, because it is… It’s _my_ house, too, and _I’m_ welcoming you to it, so come on, please?” Some part of this still felt like playing with fire, but he couldn’t say no to that look in her eyes. So, he went with her.

It was strange to address it like that, but she’d been right, it _had_ been half a year since he’d set foot in that house, and when he did it, he could actually feel it. The place was still as familiar as his own house, except it wasn’t. He hadn’t been in there for so long, and in that time, there had been all these months’ worth of living happening, of those twin girls growing, of Maya and her parents living in their awkward, altered situation. Some objects had been moved, others added, removed… If he’d been allowed to come here in all those months, he would have seen it happen organically, but now he was only seeing the changed overall.

She led him down to the basement, no doubt as aware as he was that he might have needed to make a quick exit out the window if they heard the door from above. This place had changed, too, although not so much as above. And he _had_ seen it every so often, when they’d call each other on Skype. Still, it wasn’t the same, and he let out a breath now, sort of feeling like, even _if_ it was under cover of their sneaking around, this was a big step, his being back here.

“Hey, that’s…” he spoke when he spotted something sitting propped up on top of a bookcase, then stopped as the reaction settled into a sort of sinking feeling. There was her cast, cracked down the length of it where it had been cut but still fairly intact, down to its mess of signatures and drawings, and the string lights she had added near the end. Seeing it now, after it had been gone from her arm for all this time, it just brought him back to that night, the accident. For a moment he felt like he really shouldn’t be here.

“Yeah,” she moved to the bookcase, reaching on her tiptoes until she could grab it and take it down. “This right here, it’s still my favorite part,” she pointed to the space where he had marked the numbers. _24 7 365 (366)._ “24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year…”

“366 on leap years,” he completed, looking back at her.

“Always,” she smiled, that smile full of reassurance and good feelings. He sighed, letting out the bad feelings as she put the cast down on her desk. “Tonight, was really fun,” she told him. “Just sitting out there, looking all fancy,” she drew out the words with the smallest twang to get him smiling. “Talking about this and that, with you… Made all this week worth it.”

“It was,” he agreed, staring back at her. After a beat, she stretched up to kiss him, and he held her close, his hands locked deep in the mane of her hair. If they could just have this, forever… he felt like it would be a pretty good life. When their lips parted again, briefly reconnecting a few times, she was looking at him like she knew he would have to go before long, but at the same time she wasn’t ready. Eventually, she said it aloud.

“Stay with me? Just a bit? Please?”

TO BE CONTINUED


	209. Their Need to Hold

_One week ago_

Looking at her phone, Maya in time learned that, with her being off at the library, her family had gone to spend the evening at the Matthews’ house. From past experiences, it gave her a fairly good idea of just about how long they would still be gone. It wasn’t time enough to watch a movie or anything, but it was still enough that they could just hang out and not constantly strain their ears for car doors, and house doors…

For a little while, they stood at her wall of art, and he took in all the new pieces that had been added since his last time here. He could see plenty of evidence of the ups and downs of those months… it was hard not to. He could see the anguish she’d been feeling over the accident, and the ban. But he could also see drawings of the twins, happy girls the both of them. And he could see drawings which she had received in the mail from her half brother Sam. There were drawings showing TXNY in full glory, too, and those had led to her moving to show him a bit of a song she’d been working on. He knew she struggled with the more planned side of writing, finding more ease with a stroke of inspiration, but whichever way she’d get to the end, what he had been seeing, and hearing, just told him she had a talent for this, as she did with so many other things.

“You’ll send me a track when there’s one, right?” he asked.

“Depends, are you going to send me one back?” she asked with a grin.

“Do you really want to hear more of my bad singing?” his face scrunched up, and she laughed, catching him in as much of a bear hug as someone so much shorter than him could do. That she managed to get him stumbling only made her more determined to hang on.

“I do, I really do,” she promised him, and he relented with a nod, which made her squeal and kiss him, and that was worth buckets and buckets of bad singing.

The kiss lingered, and lingered, until after a while of their standing there, arms locked around one another but still sort of angled around that rushing hug of hers, his knees buckled and they ended up first sitting, then half lying on her bed, reclaiming the kiss and giving it just a bit more commitment. When this got a bit awkward, too, for how they were positioned, they moved up until they were fully laid down, half over and half side by side.

She had missed this, too. Getting lost in a moment, just him and her, feeling warm but not uncomfortably so, no… He was holding her, kissing her, and she was happy. He was here, in her home, in her room, no matter whether or not everyone would have wanted him here, and it felt right.

“What are we going to do this summer?” she asked, when they stopped a while, breathing, resting in the moment. Her head was pressed to his heart, his fingers were gently brushing hair from her forehead. She could see how his eyes stayed on the scar there, the only sign remaining from the accident and one none of them could escape. She knew even if she told him not to worry himself over it again, he couldn’t help but look there, so she didn’t call him on it.

“Well, if your parents have any say in it, probably not a whole lot,” he replied, and there really was no way of ignoring how true it was, was there? She sighed, and his hand stilled, though his thumb kept moving side to side, stroking the side of her face, just below where the scar started and stretched on for a good two and a half inches or three. She could just close her eyes and sleep peacefully, with him there like that. “I was thinking… I know we both have jobs already, but if there was a way, what if we could go and be like… summer camp counselors or something.” She laughed. “No, really, I mean we’re both great with kids, and we’d get to see each other all the time, like at school, just less homework and more juice boxes and trips to the pool.”

“I do like a good apple juice,” she teased.

“What do you think?” he asked, and seeing he was serious about it, there really was only one thing for her to say.

“Well, if we can make it work with our other jobs… and, you know, actually get hired… Yeah, it could be fun.” He gave a smile so impishly proud that she had to laugh and kiss that face of his. “You’re just coming up with all the bright ideas these days, aren’t you?”

“Don’t sell yourself short, you’re the one who brought us down here,” he countered, kissing her again.

“That one was mine, yes. I guess we both have our moments.”

There was little of talking after that… Actually, no talking at all, as they went on kissing, as he held her, his arms wrapped around her. Maybe it was the outfit change (costume change, as she’d called it on the way back here), and how it had changed the mood between them, but it almost felt like two dates back to back, Capital and lowercase one after the other. One was fancy dress and a restaurant, pleasant conversation and the occasional basketball holler, and the other was casual dress and a small house, a basement room, a bed and an embrace, and much, much kissing. The little thought playing at the back of both their minds somehow was that, if they managed to get through tonight without anyone being chased out of here, it might have been their best day in much too long…

TO BE CONTINUED


	210. Their Need to Reach

_Today_

“Maya…” Riley’s voice beckoned, a whisper that sounded like the most repressed shout. “Did you?” She gripped her shoulder, insisting. “Did you?”

Maya looked at her, that very intense sort of look in her eyes one couldn’t help but get when they had Cory & Topanga Matthews as their parents… and she chuckled.

“It’s too easy messing with you, Riley,” she went on laughing, and after a moment her friend let go of her shoulder, not entirely shaken out of her belief.

“Y-You didn’t?” she asked, as Maya sat up.

“Oh, come on, I mean we were talking about change, and I was thinking about my sisters, how fast they’re growing, but then you were giving me those eyes, what was I supposed to do?” There was still a part of Riley that looked like she felt she’d seen true, but the more time stretched, the more uncertain she grew that things were as she’d interpreted them. “Want to give the song writing another go?” Riley nodded. “I’ll go get us some snacks, maybe that’ll help…”

As she stepped out of the room, Maya stopped for a beat, closing her eyes and sighing to herself. It wasn’t that she’d wanted to lie to her, just… This was not the kind of secret she had any intention of letting beyond her and Lucas, not so long as things were as they were with her parents… and even after, if there ever was an after… She wished it wasn’t this way, honestly, she did… She could only imagine how Riley would have reacted when she found out that it was exactly as she’d believed it.

X

_One week ago_

There’d been a moment, the two of them lying there, his arms holding her close, a kiss that just went on, where it felt like something changed in the air… like a thought was opening up in their minds, and the more it opened, the more they seemed to cling to this kiss, to each other. When they felt it in each other’s lips, they just sort of paused, and looked at each other, a question in their eyes. He was thinking it, too, of course, but then he couldn’t bring himself to mention it, especially now, being all too aware of how he might have been required to make a quick and complicated exit. But then she was looking at him, and…

“Maya…” he spoke, hesitating. She wasn’t looking away. “But what about…” he started, shutting his eyes and running his hand across his face a couple times like it would knock some sense into him for even considering it.

“They won’t be here for a while,” she told him, never needing to say the words. “It’s just us.” There was so little hesitation in her voice, just enough that he knew the thought of going through with it _did_ make her sufficiently nervous. He hated to even have to suggest it, but then he had to ask, because the last thing he’d want would be for her to do anything for the wrong reasons.

“This isn’t… This isn’t about being… upset, with…” he gestured awkwardly to the ceiling. He’d been afraid she’d get mad, but she looked at him instead like she was almost glad he had considered it. And she was shaking her head.

“It’s not… I swear it’s not, and I couldn’t lie, not for this,” she went on, and he believed her. “It’s about nothing and no one except that… I love you, I love us… like this. And it’s about the fact that we just had an amazing Capital D Date tonight, and then even a lowercase one to top it off, and… if there’s a more perfect time, then I don’t know what it’s supposed to look like. Right now, it feels pretty right to me, and I know you’re too much of a cowboy to say it, but I know you feel it, too.”

She was right… of course, she was right. And now… now that she’d said all this, now that they both knew what they both knew, it was sort of hanging in the air between them, the possibility that this might be it, that they might be on the verge of…

“I…” she started, and he figured she’d changed her mind. He was ready to be the picture of understanding, of kissing her good night and making his exit while he still had a way out without her parents being around. “Do you… do you h… have a, uh…” He took a breath, realizing what had stopped her before, not changing her mind, quite the opposite. After a moment, he gave a short nod. Before she could ask, he explained.

“My… my father gave them to me a while back, said… if it ever happened, he preferred to think I wouldn’t get caught in the moment and not…” Again, he scrubbed at his face, the memory of what might have been the single most awkward conversation of his life being one of the last things he wanted to be thinking about at a time like this. But then she was giggling, and he looked at her and he let the memory float away.

So here they were. Him and her, in love, ready and willing the both of them. There was, as one might say, nothing left to do but to actually go for it. Take the plunge… _I know you feel it, too._

He laid his hand to her cheek, she leaned to it, and then he kissed her, and the hesitation melted away like it had never been there at all. For a while, there was nothing for them to know or think about except each other. The moment came, and it happened, and when it was over it felt like… like this day, with its Date, and its date, and its… its… This day had gone above and beyond to be one to remember.

It was quiet now, so quiet, save for the sound of the two of them breathing, and for the pounding of her heart still so strong in her ears. They were both lying sort of on their sides with the sheets pulled up over them, facing each other, and her head was buried between his head and shoulder, her arm around him, his arm around her. She was drawing circles on his back, he was dragging lines down hers… Everything felt absolutely wonderful, and she never wanted this moment to stop. She could hear his heart, too.

“You okay?” he had to ask, and she just smiled.

“I’m so okay it’s feeling a little selfish,” she told him, and he turned his head to kiss the top of hers. “How about you?”

“If everything didn’t feel this real, I’d think I was dreaming.” She giggled, and as she looked up at him, he kissed her gently.

And then they both heard it at the same time. A car door… and another, and… a baby crying…

Their eyes bugged out at once, looking to each other before springing out of bed, giving no mind to nakedness – for all the blushing and shyness that had happened earlier – as they snatched up discarded clothing and threw it on as quickly but correctly as possible.

“Where’s my shoe? I had two, I… Thanks…” he made quick hopping work of sticking his foot into the shoe as she’d handed it to him, the motivation of being found here in a state of undress giving him a fleetness unparalleled. She had been even faster than him, which really seemed to border on inhumanly fast, but he would hardly argue if it meant not getting busted by her parents. “Well at least now we don’t have to worry about getting your stuff back here,” he nodded to her bag of Date things.

“Forget about that, go, go, go, I’ll cover you,” she told him in a hurried whisper, getting him to the window and pushing it open. He turned back to her, briefly taking the time to kiss her, to acknowledge what this night had turned out to be, for which she smiled, and then he climbed out the window and she closed it behind him.

Maya took a moment to check herself over, seeing that she looked moderately normal, though at once reaching for an elastic to pull her hair into a bun, so she wouldn’t look so dishevelled. She took a quick look to her bed, tugged the blankets back in place and tossed her school bag on top to try and hide any sign of… events…

“Maya, are you home?” her mother called from upstairs.

“Down here!” she called back, grabbing her Date bag and managing to place it and not toss it into her closet, shutting the door, and then climbing up the stairs. How she managed to come off like someone who’d spent the last several hours at the library instead of what she’d really been up to, she would never know. Not that it mattered. What did matter was that her parents were none the wiser, Lucas got home without a hitch, and though it would be her secret and his for the vastly foreseeable future, it had been a night… Oh, it had been a night…

TO BE CONTINUED


	211. Her Realization of a Problem

Before long, April had rolled over into May, and the new month would get to feel like an extra push for all of them to make it to the end of the school year. They were almost there; summer was just so close… Already everyone’s plans were advancing. Maya and Riley had finally had a breakthrough on their joint songwriting effort, and Smackle was supposed to get back to them with some music for their lyrics any day now, to join this number and several written and composed by Smackle herself, and some more with lyrics by Maya alone. Their fourth bandmate and resident song machine, along with Farkle, were set to make another trip down to Austin for the summer. And several of them along with Maya and Lucas were now looking at this possibility of becoming camp counselors.

As far as everything else was concerned, well… there was something of a scale as far as how it was all going. On the one hand you had things like the entire situation with Asher and Ray. They still didn’t know who had leaked the photo and at this point they didn’t think about it too much. What had been done could not be undone, and they were not going to give this person, whoever it had been, more power than it deserved, which was none at all. And now that it _had_ been done, and that everyone knew the two of them were in a relationship, it was actually… kind of great. You’d think you’d never seen anyone so proud to walk hand in hand with someone as Asher Garcia was, walking hand in hand with his boyfriend. And while Ray had always been more shy about being public, the weeks had helped him get just that much more comfortable with the idea that he could go along and show who he was and not be afraid of what people might think. Living in the Friar house, he had flourished in ways they never would have imagined, and perhaps happiest of that fact was Melinda Friar, so happy to look after both of her boys now.

On the flipside, there was the ongoing frustration brewing in the home of the Hunter Harts. After Lucas had attempted to go and speak to her parents and been flat out turned away, all the progress which had taken them away from the chill of the start of the ban had been reset, on a whole new level really, born of the realization that things really hadn’t been getting better, that what she’d mistaken for progress had really been her loving them too much to keep being upset with them and them letting her because it made things easier. But they hadn’t changed their minds about Lucas, not one bit and that… that had made it feel so much worse. There was no way she could ever accept that they should treat him this way, this boy, this wonderful boy, who treated her with care and respect, with love… And if they couldn’t trust her on this, then who were they kidding?

And then of course there was this new thing in her life now, this secret… How she walked around every day without having the stupidest grin on her face whenever she thought about it, honestly, she couldn’t figure it out. And _him_ , well, he was having that same sort of barely contained recollection thing going on, though being that the two of them were the only ones to know the truth, they were the only ones able to look at the other’s face and know when they’d been thinking about it. But then, just noticing it, and calling the other on it with a pointed sort of look, would be as good as playing themselves, to the point where it was almost a game they’d be playing.

That whole day, the Date, the date, and everything after those… It had been for them, not to get back _at_ anyone but to get back _to_ someone, to each other, and since then, it had gotten to feel – at least to her – like a choice had been made between them, that they would be happy with one another, even if they were the only ones who got to know about it. That had turned the last few weeks into finding ways and finding time for more dates, for the occasional Date, and for the rest. Under the cover of their dwindling school year, it became almost easy.

That day as she went back home after school, thinking of the coming Friday, where they were looking to go see a movie, she felt good. They had applied at a local summer camp and were waiting to hear back. She had talked about it with Asher’s uncle at the diner, and he’d told her if she got the job they would figure out a schedule to allow her to do both if that was what she wanted.

When she got home, her mother was in the kitchen, and Maya veered right to the nursery to go and look in on her sisters.

“Afternoon, ladies,” she came in with a beaming smile, finding the pair of them turning joyful looks on to her. Even after all this time, seeing them look at her, recognizing her, it was just beyond anything she could put into words, though she had put it to paper, with colored pencils.

“Maya…” She looked up at the sound of her mother’s voice and, finding her standing at the door to the nursery, looking at her, Maya felt quickly that something was up. She had that look on her face, that serious talk kind of look… the I-don’t-want-to-say-it-but-I-have-to kind of talk. “We need to talk,” she went on, and now the feeling Maya was having was the tiniest bit of fear. What if she knew? About the dates, about… everything?

“Talk about what?”

TO BE CONTINUED


	212. Her Realization of a Plan

“Talk about what?” Maya asked her mother, and oh how her throat felt dry, ready to shut down. She was doing her absolute best not to stand there and look as though she was considering turning and crawling out the bay window of her former bedroom rather than have her mother say she knew she wasn’t a virgin anymore, that she’d been telling her she was off studying when she was actually going on dates with the boy they didn’t want near her.

Her mother motioned for her to come along, leaving the twins in the nursery so the two of them could go and sit in the living room and have this talk, and Maya walked along robotically while her heart was beating for escape. They sat down, and Maya resisted the urge to check herself for sweating.

“What is it?” she asked, and the sliver of panic that escaped her then might have sounded like something else than what it truly was, because her mother looked at her now like she thought Maya was afraid someone was ill or injured or dead. So, Katy made herself smile to counteract it, and now Maya was just… plain confused. “Mom?”

“Well, see,” she gave a weak laugh, sitting up. “Your father and I, we were talking about what we might do this summer. It _is_ coming along in a few weeks.” Maya resisted saying anything to point out she was well aware of this. “We were thinking… maybe a trip, but then with the girls being so small, the thought of long flights, and hotels, it’s not…” she shook her head, before moving on. “Then we got the idea it might be good to go and visit some people back east. I know he’s been wanting to show you more of where he grew up, and well, one thing led to another, and well… we’re spending the summer in Philadelphia.”

Her mother was smiling, trying to look encouraging, but it was meeting a wall. Maya was looking back at her like she had to be missing something, had to, because this was just too much.

“The… the whole summer?” she asked.

“We’d get on the road, oh, a few days after you’re done with school, and then coming back, I guess it depends, when your senior year will be starting, and everything that needs to get done, but I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

“Won’t be a problem? I have a job, Mom, I just applied for another.”

“Oh, but we had an idea for that, too, Shawn talked to Mr. Matthews, he said he’d be happy to take you on at his store…”

“No, but I… I…”

Then it hit her, about as swiftly as getting a boulder to the face. Ideas, so many ideas they were having, but no… She knew what this was… Oh, she knew what it was… The school year was one thing, there was no way around it, but the time in between, _that_ they could control.

They were taking her out of Austin. They were taking her away from him, so she couldn’t run off to him whenever she liked in all this free time.

“Mom, you can’t…” she begged, feeling her voice return.

“Maya, please…”

“No!” her voice raised itself, and she closed her eyes for a moment, trying to get control back. “This isn’t about showing me Philadelphia, showing me where Shawn grew up, no… You just don’t want me seeing Lucas all summer.” She had to hand it to her mother, at least she didn’t try to pretend like she’d gotten it wrong.

“It might not be a bad idea, you know?”

“No, it would be a terrible idea,” Maya got up, feeling like she couldn’t sit still, not now. “You guys are unbelievable, you know that?”

“Maya, we’re only trying to look out for you,” her mother looked at her, sounding more serious now, but even then, Maya couldn’t take it.

“I’m not going,” she stated.

“Maya…” her mother pressed.

“No, I’m not. You can’t make me. I’ll stay here, I’ll stay with Riley, it’ll be the best summer ever.” _I won’t have to deal with you guys._ The thought had come all on its own, and it was a good thing she’d managed to keep it a thought, not to speak it, because oh how it had hurt her inside, and she could just imagine how much it would have hurt her mother. No matter what, causing them pain was not something she wanted to do, ever.

“You’d miss your sisters’ first birthday?” her mother stood from the couch, and Maya let out a breath. She’d completely forgotten about that. Her sisters would be turning one in August… before the end of summer… before they came back from Philly if they were really going.

“Then let’s just not go,” Maya told her, now feeling like she was about to cry.

“You told her?” They both turned to find that, so focused on each other, they hadn’t seen Shawn had arrived, and now Maya had to wonder how long he’d been standing there. She looked at him now, her eyes pleading. “Summer in Philly will be good for all of us,” he tried to tell her, but she just couldn’t do anything except shake her head.

“I have to get out of here…” she moved to walk around him and out the door.

“Maya…” he tried to stop her, with words, not physically, which would have been the only way to stop her at this point. “Where are you going?” She stopped, stood on the front steps, turning back to look at him, to her mother behind him. She felt so tired… How had it come to this?

“Where do you think?” she said, her voice weak, before she marched down the steps and made her way to the Friar house.

TO BE CONTINUED


	213. Her Realization of Panic

She’d been less hesitant about hanging out at his house in the last few weeks. Back in October, when this had all started, it would feel sort of like maybe she shouldn’t, even though _there_ she wasn’t unwelcome, like he was at her house, but now… now it felt like refuge, like safety she needed. And right now… right now she needed it more than ever.

She knew it had been a drastic response, to just run out of her own house but, honestly, she just couldn’t have stayed there a minute longer, not right now. She might have said something she’d regret for a long time. Getting out was a mercy on all of them. Still, she knew she’d have to go back sooner or later. She’d almost run away once, the first year they’d been in Texas, and in the end she’d mostly been stopped by the fact that she’d been too young to get on a train or a bus without an adult to say she could, and that was probably for the best. She’d felt bad for doing it, almost doing it, afterward. Lucas had been the one to look after her and keep her safe, him and Zay. Did she remember that?

This wasn’t running away, this was just going somewhere else until she wasn’t so upset anymore, but even so it felt like it would leave a scar.

When she got to the house, by some chance, the boys were coming out of it, along with the two dogs, looking like they’d been about go off for a walk. They spotted her coming toward them though, and she must have had a telling look on her face, because in the time it took for her to reach them, Ray had taken Dash’s leash along with Billie’s and he’d started away with the both of them for their walk, leaving Lucas to catch up with her and greet her with a hug.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and she didn’t answer at first, only held on to him, closing her eyes.

Instead of going into the house they walked along the side and ended up in the backyard, where Maya unfolded the whole tale of her return home, her mother’s wanting to talk, her initial mistake as to the nature of that conversation, and then the truth of it… all of it, right to the point where she’d come to see him, and the fact that they knew it was where she’d gone.

As soon as she’d told him that they wanted to take her to Philadelphia for the summer, his shoulders had sort of slumped, like he’d expected it. Maybe he hadn’t expected this specific scenario, but he’d expected them to do something to continue to enforce this separation between the two of them, and now here it was… and it was so much worse to know it. A whole summer of not seeing one another except maybe on a computer or phone screen. No camp counseling, no camping with Pappy Joe, no Babineaux family party…

“They can’t do that,” she insisted, shaking her head and pacing back and forth. “I won’t go, they’re not making me.” Even as she said it, she couldn’t help hearing her mother’s reminder. If they went and she didn’t, it meant missing her sisters’ birthday. Of course, if the whole point of the family’s going to Philadelphia was to keep her away from Lucas, and they all knew that it was, then if _she_ didn’t go her parents and her sisters had no reason to go anywhere either. She just had to hold her ground, refuse to go, and that would be it.

“I don’t want you to go either,” he told her, and she let out a breath. She felt a ‘but’ coming. She looked at him, as though to say ‘go on, say it.’ “But if it means making things okay for you and them again…”

“But it’s not okay, it hasn’t been okay,” she countered. “I wasn’t arguing as much as before, but their minds never changed. They still want you nowhere near me, same as since the accident.” His head bowed at this, and she moved at once to hold him. He closed his arms around her, too, and she took a breath. “You know I’m going to hold my ground as long as I need to. They can’t ever make me think any less of you.”

For a while, several minutes though she couldn’t say exactly how many, they just stood there. How many times had just getting to hold and be held by him been the thing to make her feel at peace again? To think she might not have those arms around her for a whole summer felt like she was being shoved out to sea without a paddle again.

“Do you need to stay for dinner?” he eventually asked, and she sighed, opening her eyes.

“No, I need to go back,” she admitted. “I need to… I don’t know what, I… need to try and talk to them again, get them to change their minds. This is our last summer before high school’s over. I’m spending it with you,” she affirmed, looking him in the eye. He smiled at her, but she knew deep down he wasn’t getting his hopes up… and she wasn’t blaming him. At this point, it felt prudent.

So, they kissed, and she told him she’d write later and tell him how it had gone, and she started back for home. It was a nice May afternoon, but she couldn’t enjoy the journey. The entire time she could only feel dread building in her about going back to her parents, what they would say, and whether they would listen to her this time… Summer in Philly… It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go. Just not like this…

TO BE CONTINUED


	214. Her Realization of Losses

There was no way this would be anything but awkward and, even though she knew it, she felt her feet dragging as she neared her house. She only had to walk through the door, but then what would happen after that? Her parents would be there, and they’d look at her… Her mother would possibly look like she’d cried, and she might have that old guilty look which had come around after she’d taken her from New York to Texas. Her father would be stuck somewhere between being upset with her for running out and being relieved that she’d returned. And her…

Of course, she felt bad, on the level where she obviously loved both her parents very much, regardless of these things they’d done in all these months, and never wanted to hurt them. But then she’d also feel bad for feeling bad, because she knew that what they were doing, to both her and Lucas was legitimately unfair and she wasn’t just being a dramatic teenager. So, she’d be there, caught between trying to make herself heard and letting her grievances out in a shout, where _that_ would be all they heard.

When she came to stand in front of the house, her little house in Texas, she froze. She stood there on the path, and all she had to do was keep going a few more steps and then climb up to the door, and she’d have arrived to the moment she’d dreaded. That was sort of the problem, wasn’t it? The dread was too strong, twisting through her guts and rooting her to the spot. Her hand went to her pocket, for some reason she couldn’t understand, but then as she closed her fingers together, the gesture felt so familiar. There was nothing in her pocket, but there had been, for a while. Lucas’ pocket watch, the one she’d given him for Christmas a few years back. He had it back now, of course, but he’d leant it to her more than once before, in moments where she needed support, his support, when he couldn’t be there with her. Right now, the gesture alone made her feel his presence with her, filling her with courage.

As she started to walk again, the door opened. She froze again. There was her father… there was the relief. He saw the indecisiveness in her, had to. He stepped back to allow her through. ‘Come back,’ it said. One deep breath, and then she went up and into the house. She’d been gone all of forty-five minutes, but it might have been ten times that for them. Her mother was pacing the living room with Gracie in her arms, and there was Nellie in the playpen. There was the guilt, all over her mother’s face, and there was the guilt, in Maya’s gut, riddled with doubt.

“I don’t want to go to Philadelphia,” she spoke quietly, evenly. “Please… don’t make me, not like this. It’s my last summer while I’m in high school, you know it won’t be the same after. I want to spend it with my friends, here. I’m going to be a counselor at summer camp, I’m going to work at the diner. Farkle and Smackle are coming from New York. The band’s all going to be here, we’re working on a new album, we’ll get to do shows, the four of us. My little sisters are turning one, in the city where they were born…”

In her head, the plea continued quietly. _I don’t know what the future holds for all of us. Next summer we’ll be having our trip, that we’ve been planning all this time, we’ll go to Europe. And we’ll be getting ready for college. We might all get separated then. And Lucas… What if he goes somewhere else? What if this is our last real summer like this?_

“Please don’t take this from me,” she spoke aloud again, in that same soft, pleading voice. “Please don’t take my friends from me…” _Please don’t take him from me._

Her parents said nothing at first. They looked at her, at each other, and in the suspense she could only feel like she was almost holding her breath, like in her mind she had her eyes closed, her fingers crossed, and she was just waiting… hoping…

“Maya…” her mother started, and already the tone, apologetic but determined, made her eyes sting in defeat. “It’s for the best.”

“Then how come it feels like worst?” was all she could say before she walked past them, not even rushing, just broken down, to the basement door and down into her room. She sat on her bed, then crawled to lay her head on the pillow, curling up and staying there. If she breathed just deep enough, she could pick up on the scent of him, his shampoo…

She knew he’d be waiting to hear back from her, and she was going to tell him what had happened, but right now all she wanted to do was stay like this. He didn’t deserve this. That was sort of the root of the entire issue, wasn’t it? Deep down she knew, she wasn’t so much thinking of herself, not entirely. Mostly there was him, the boy she loved, who was being left to feel he was something he really wasn’t, every time they pushed him away, every time they declared their mistrust for him. And she wanted to fight for him, so hard, and she did… but how hard could she fight without risking the loss of other people she loved, of her family? They knew what side she was on, but she’d never want it to go so far that they’d think she didn’t care for them as much as she cared for him. And so here she was, down in her room, caught in the middle and crying again.

TO BE CONTINUED


	215. Her Realization of Options

She hadn’t told anyone else about her ‘kidnapping to Philly’ as she’d come to think of it in the past few days, but she knew she wouldn’t have a choice before long. They’d already picked up on a sort of tension, though they’d either written it off as end of year stress or decided not to press on it unless she brought them into it. And then one afternoon, she’d gone along with Nadine to Riley’s house, for a call with Smackle. She was supposed to share her recording of Maya and Riley’s collaboration.

As they waited, Maya knew this might be as good of a time as any to unleash the news to her bandmates. This was going to affect so many of the plans they’d made, leaving them all as disappointed as she was. Well, maybe not _as_ disappointed. They would all be here over the summer, without her. Now it would be her turn to be the out 25 of TXNY75. And much as she didn’t want it to come off like she thought herself more important than anyone, well… She _was_ the lead singer, wasn’t she? What were they going to do if she wasn’t there?

When Smackle called in, she felt like she was holding her breath. What was she supposed to do? Should she wait until they heard the song before telling them, or should she just get it over with? If she waited until after it would sort of spoil the mood, and if she said it before… well, same thing, really, although with the added chance that it might lift their spirits a little. She sighed. This was not going to be good.

“I have to tell you guys something,” she started, when Smackle asked if everyone was ready to hear the song. The others looked at her, curious, even a little concerned. “My parents are taking me to spend the summer in Philadelphia. The whole summer.” There, it was out.

“What?” Nadine asked, her voice pitching with shock.

“How come?” Smackle asked.

“Give you one guess,” Nadine frowned, tipping her head in a sign that she was not frowning at Smackle but at the news. Smackle looked at them from the screen for a couple of seconds, and then her mouth formed a silent ‘oh.’ Maya looked to Riley, sure to be the one most devastated by this, but instead… Riley was looking at her like she’d been waiting on this.

“What?” Maya asked her, and Riley smiled leaning in.

“We’re going, too,” she revealed. “My parents and Auggie and me,” she clarified.

“You are? Since when?” Maya sat up, blinking.

“Couple days ago, I think. I’d been trying to tell you, and you looked so upset… I kind of guessed why. But now you know, so… you won’t be alone,” Riley shrugged. “I know it’s not the same, but at least it’s some…” She didn’t finish, as Maya lunged forward to hug her best friend, and Riley squeezed back happily. No, it wouldn’t be the same, and Maya had still not given up entirely on getting this whole thing cancelled, but… if she didn’t succeed, then all hope wouldn’t be lost, would it?

“So… you two are going to be in Philadelphia, and Smackle and I are going to be here?” Nadine recapped.

“Or we could just go to Philadelphia,” Smackle shrugged. “We’ve done shows in Austin, one show in New York… We could open a whole new city.” Maya looked to Riley, finding a rising intrigue in her that matched her own. It wouldn’t be so much of a stretch for Smackle to go to Philly instead of Austin, although that would still leave Nadine. They turned to her, finding she was already considering her options.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull it off, but I can try,” she shrugged, smiling. This got her pulled into the still half connected hug between Maya and Riley.

“We’re hugging you, too, Isadora, even if you can’t feel it,” Maya called to the screen.

“Very appreciated,” was Smackle’s response.

This had the potential to bring back at least some of what this summer was going to be into her life, although it was still only a harebrained half-made plan, and it was still not what they would have wanted. Plus, if they did manage to get all four members of TXNY into a place that was neither TX nor NY, what would that mean for the rest of them? Would Farkle still go to Austin? She thought of Zay, and Scott, and Farkle, and of course Lucas, the band boyfriends, and the rest of the group, still back here, without them… For a moment an even crazier plan was cooked up in her head, wherein the rest of them could go to New York and stay with Farkle. New York to Philly, that was manageable, compared to Austin to Philly…

There was no point trying to work out any more details for the summer, not until they knew for sure where all of them would be over the coming break. But until they knew that, they still had the matter of the new song, and after thinking they’d all be sucked into her void of moodiness, Maya found herself and her friends now sitting eagerly in wait for the song she had written with Riley, now set to music by Isadora Smackle. She reached for Riley’s hand, giving it a squeeze and giving her a smile. How would she ever have made it without her, here by her side? She might never have left New York, and then the two of them may have drifted apart and… No, that had not been, nor would it ever be.

“You ready?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Riley nodded, and they gave the signal to Smackle to let them hear it.

TO BE CONTINUED


	216. Her Realization of Frustration

Friday morning, her pre-calculus class was cancelled, as their teacher had to leave in haste to meet his wife at the hospital after she’d suddenly gone into labor. Rather than finding them a substitute, they’d been sent off to the library to study until lunch break, which was to follow the period at hand. Maya got up to go to the bathroom midway through her ‘class,’ which couldn’t have been more accidentally right on time if she’d tried. Just as she was coming back out of the bathroom, she spotted Lucas walking down the hall.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” she called to him, in a tone like a teacher busting a student for misbehaving, and his head shot up, only to relax when he saw it was her. She chuckled, until he held up his hand and she saw the bandage. “Yikes,” she walked toward him. “Another mishap in metal work?” she asked, inspecting his hand and the bandage wrapped around it.

“Wasn’t even me, Dylan dropped something, I tried to stop it before it got him…”

“… and got yourself instead,” she smiled consolingly. “Would you like me to kiss it and make it better?”

“I don’t care how old I am, yes, please,” he tipped his head, and she leaned over to kiss his palm. “Girlfriend magic,” he intoned.

“Powerful stuff, don’t let it go to your head.” After a moment, standing there, the smiles seemed to sink into that space that was slowly growing around them, ever since they’d found out she was not going to be spending the summer in Austin with him.

They were both trying so hard to look on the bright side, but how could they do that when the bright side was the person now standing in front of them, and, almost as soon as school ended, that bright side was going to be states and states away from them? As of yet, her wild idea to send everyone but the band to New York remained some kind of madness at the back of her mind, knowing full well it would never happen. As for getting the second half of the band to Philly, that was still in the air, too. Nadine had put the suggestion to her parents, but for the time being it was only that, a suggestion. Even so, the way she told it, she didn’t think they would say yes. She did want them to still try to get Smackle in Philadelphia though, still try to get three quarters of the band to take the city and spread their music out there.

“I should get back to class,” he told her, sounding like he’d rather stay here with her.

“They sent you to the nurse?” she guessed, and he nodded. “Well, can you be at the nurse’s a couple minutes more?” He smiled. “My class is out, teacher’s gone to become a dad, so we’re in the library… not exactly being watched. Right now, getting to talk to you a couple of minutes sounds like a good idea, don’t you think?”

“Get those minutes while we can,” he agreed.

“I was thinking the same thing,” she smiled, then sighed. “I don’t want to go,” she reiterated, and this time he knew she wasn’t talking about class. “There’s like a hundred reasons for me to stay here, so few for me to go, I…” She hated to feel so helpless. It used to be she was a lot tougher than this, wasn’t she? Or maybe she was just so much more dedicated to not showing when something made a crack in her. With Lucas there with her, she never felt she had to hide.

“Can you try and talk to them again?” he suggested. “Maybe just one at a time… No matter what, we know they only want the best for you, same as you and I do… Maybe you can get to the point where you can meet in the middle.” She looked at him for a moment, shaking her head to herself. “What?” he asked.

“Just generally amazed by you,” she shrugged, leaning in to kiss him. “Alright, I release you back to that den of pain. Seriously, they should give you extra credit whenever you bleed… Actually, no, that might backfire.”

“Lowercase tonight?” he confirmed, and she nodded.

“Possibly with an asterisk,” she gave him a look, and he bit back a laugh.

“Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“It was the most in tune with our… date vocabulary… and the least obvious, just in case.”

“I like having a secret code,” he told her before they started on their way back to their respective destinations.

“Two letters, a symbol, and some numbers. It’s definitely getting there,” she agreed.

Back in the library, she thought about what she’d told him. She did want to try and convince her parents to change their minds again, but at the same time she couldn’t make herself do it. She knew how it had gone all the times before and thinking of doing it again and expecting something else to happen felt a lot like going mad. But whether she liked it or not she just had to try, didn’t she? This was something worth fighting for, and that meant she had to fight for it. She was going to fight for her summer with all she had and then… well… whichever way it happened, she couldn’t say if either side of it would make her feel like she’d gotten what she wanted. It wouldn’t fix everything, nothing could. But it could fix some things, and at this point, that was about the best she could hope for.

That night, if they were to keep record, would be a _d_ , not a _d*_. By then she had made up her mind, that she was going to talk to her mother, and when she’d told him that, he had offered to walk her home.

TO BE CONTINUED


	217. Her Realization of Fears

The house was quiet as she walked in, though after a few seconds she could just hear a low humming she recognized as her mother singing quietly in the nursery. Maya took off her shoes and set down her bag before walking silently into her old room. There was her mother, sat at the bay window with Nellie asleep in her arms. They had all quickly learned that Miss Penelope Hunter was a light sleeper, which sometimes meant having to maintain the rocking lullabies for a good long while. Maya approached the other crib, finding Gracie was being the good little sound sleeper she was, before approaching her mother and looking down on Nellie with a smile. Katy gave her a little nod, and Maya happily took over the singing duties, leaving her mother to quietly hold the first born of her twins. Finally, they were able to set her back down and make a light retreat from the nursery.

“It’s nice out, want to come and sit on the steps?” her mother whispered. So, she’d guessed she wanted to talk. It figured. Maya could only nod, and then they walked out to sit in front of the house, making sure the door wouldn’t lock behind them, and that the baby monitor was on and working. “Your dad has to get up early in the morning so he’s sleeping already,” Katy revealed. “How was the library?” A few seconds went by before Maya could reply.

“I wasn’t at the library,” she stated simply.

“I know,” her mother replied. Silence, again, then Maya leaned to rest her head to her mother’s shoulder, and Katy picked up her hand and held it between both of her own. “This all hasn’t been easy on you, I know that, too. I know you have to think we’re being unfair, unreasonable, that it makes no sense. Maybe it doesn’t… not to you… Some days, not even to us.” Maya turned her eyes up to look at her mother’s face as she spoke, eyes fixed somewhere in front of them whether or not she was actually looking there. “Every time I look at you, it’s anyone’s guess what I’ll think about, what I’ll see. Sometimes it’ll be… holding you, the day you were born. Sometimes it’ll be the first time I saw you on a stage… the first time we walked into this house… We had a lot of years when it was just you and me… you were my whole world, baby girl, and you still are, even if there are more people in our world now, you and me, that’s special. It never won’t be. Sometimes I look at you and I think about the first time I felt you kick, right here in my belly, right here,” she pressed her index finger to the spot, like it had been marked for life. Maya looked at it, too.

Katy sat up now, and Maya did, too, meeting her eye. Her mother looked at her face, a sad little smile in her eyes as she reached up ran that same index finger along the line of the scar on her forehead.

“Now every day, when I look at you, this is the first thing I see. And I know it’s not your fault that it’s there, or what it does, but I see it, and now all I see in my head is you… lying in that hospital bed.” Her mother’s voice trembled, her eyes spilled tears down her cheeks. “All I see is the moment I almost lost you.” Maya felt herself tearing up, too, though she was more concerned with reaching to wipe tears from her mother’s face.

“You didn’t…” she promised, her voice rough.

“And I don’t know what I would have become if I did.” They sat there quietly for a few moments. “What we both would have become, me and your dad, too. You know we talk about you when it’s just him and me? Not talking since the accident, I mean long before that. He… he is so _proud_ , that he gets to call you his daughter, you know? And that you call him Dad. He talks about you like you saved his life, like you were always a part of him, waiting to be with him again. That night, when we got the call that you were in the hospital, I’d never seen him like that. It was the first time he felt like he could lose you and it scared the hell out of him. He never wants to have to feel that way again…”

Her chest felt just a little tight, listening to her mother, taking it all in, imagining all these things in her head. As the silence set in again, in her mind she was back to that night, the accident. She thought about the moments following the crash, when she’d regained consciousness as she was being pulled out of the car. She thought about the moment where it all came back to her, and her brain just locked on to one thing and one thing alone. _Lucas!_ She remembered, she felt… the frenzy that had taken over, not knowing where he was, not knowing if he was alive… The paramedics had quickly told her that he was, that they were both headed to the hospital, but it had only gone so far to reassure her. The feeling had sort of levelled out, by the time, the next morning, when she’d managed to go and find him in the ER, and they’d both been able to see for themselves that the other was alive and, though banged up and a little broken, they would be okay. But that moment where the feeling was at its most vivid, most raw… it still found her, every once in a while, still touched her when she least expected it.

She looked at her mother now, and she felt like, even if to some extent she could see and understand what she’d been feeling all this time, what they’d both been feeling, her parents… she hadn’t really stopped to think about it this much until now. It might not have made her suddenly agree with how they’d treated Lucas, and her, too, but at the same time, she sort of understood it a little better and… she didn’t know how to feel anymore. But she wasn’t running.

“Why is it so important to you guys that we go to Philadelphia?” she made herself ask. There was no subterfuge here tonight, and if they were ever going to get honest answers…

“Really, when it started, we were only going to go for a couple of weeks,” her mother said. “But then the more we talked about it, being out there, the five of us…”

“Nine, with the Matthews,” Maya piped in.

“The nine of us,” her mother agreed with a nod.

“Ten, with Smackle,” Maya added again, and her mother let out a breath, starting once more.

“The ten of us, out there, it feels like a chance for us to get away from this whole thing and just… be a family again. I know that, to you, it just looks like we want to take you away from everything you wanted to do, that we’re taking you away from him… Mostly we’re taking ourselves away from all of it, to just… leave it all behind, get in touch with who we were again. And Shawn does really want to take you around the places where he grew up. We never expected it would be easy, or that you would want to go, but… It could be good for us, and for you, too. Just need to give it a chance…”

Maya got hitched up on something her mother had said, about getting away from the situation for a while. It just took her back to Lucas, what he’d said before she’d gone to New York. _Leave it in the basement._ Her parents wanted to do the same thing. When she’d gotten back to Austin, to them… Oh, she’d been so happy…

“Okay,” she finally spoke, her voice small. Her mother looked at her, and Maya looked at her mother. “We’ll go to Philadelphia.” Her mother seemed hesitant. “Really. I mean it. We’ll go, we’ll… we’ll spend the summer there.” When her mother smiled, Maya reached her arms around her neck and hugged her, and her mother hugged her back. “One thing,” she added, and as they pulled back, she could see her locked in that pause. But Maya shook her head, so she knew it wasn’t about Lucas. “Philly’s close to New York. Sam, Cara, Eliza, Wyatt… They’re out there. I want to spend some time with them, somehow, while we’re out there.” Her mother looked at her for a moment, then she nodded. Deal. They stayed like that, sitting for a while, holding to each other, as Maya considered what she’d just committed to. A summer in Philadelphia… a summer without him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	218. Their Farewell For Final Weeks

Before any of them could see it coming, the last week of the school year was just a weekend away. Finals were in full swing, with all their bells and whistles, playing to the tune of collective stress and leaving hardly any space for peace and quiet. For the vast majority of their group of friends, this was the end of junior year. The two exceptions were of course Scott the sophomore and Ray the senior. While Scott was finding himself counseled at every turn from those of them who’d gone through those finals the year before, Ray was for the most part left to his own bubble, so he would complete these very last exams in his high school days, and if anyone came close to disturbing that bubble, they’d have the boyfriend and the roommate to contend with, guards to the senior bubble.

Focusing on their finals was probably the best way available to them in order not to think too hard about the impending shift of summer.

Lucas was trying very hard not to think about saying goodbye to Maya as she’d fly off to Philadelphia in less than two weeks now. When she’d called him, late the night when she’d gone home from their date to speak to her mother, he hadn’t needed to hear her say it before he knew what she’d say. She was going. She was leaving Austin for the summer and spending the weeks between school’s end and school’s return up in Philadelphia with her parents and her sisters, and Riley and her family, and Smackle and Nadine, possibly.

He had listened as she recounted to him the conversation she’d had with her mother, and he could hear in her voice just how much the conversation had done her good, the honesty they had shared, even as it had cemented the fact that the two of them, that their group of friends, would be splintered for the summer. Once she’d finished saying it all, there’d been silence, as they both faced this accomplished reality.

He hadn’t been able to argue against it, nor would he have done it. He’d never seen it as his place to say what they should or shouldn’t do in all this. He’d accepted it, he’d resigned himself to it, from the moment he’d woken up after the accident, as it had all started to come together in his mind, what he’d done… almost done… He had known there would be consequences, and harsh as they’d turned out to be, he had accepted every last one. He’d done this, and they had every right to blame him, to lay down the punishment. The fact of the matter was that he might have blamed himself more for what he’d caused than either of them ever would.

As for Maya, although she had made her choice, made it and didn’t regret it in any way, she couldn’t pretend like she felt any less anguished over the prospect of leaving the majority of her friends behind for all those weeks… of leaving _him_ for all that time. Even her parents handled her change of mind with the utmost respect. They were happy – relieved – that she’d made this turn, but they didn’t treat it like any kind of victory on their part either. They all needed this time to reconnect, and they were taking it, and that was that. It didn’t shift any of their positions on the Lucas front and it wouldn’t and it had nothing to do with it.

It would be Maya, and Riley, and Smackle in Philadelphia. Nadine’s parents, in the end, had preferred to keep her in Austin with them, with the three little Zhu sisters, the reasons being more than understandable. As Maya had argued with her own parents back when she was still trying to keep them from going, this _was_ their last summer at home. Next summer would be the big trip, and then… college would be upon them, and Nadine would very likely find herself very far from home. They wanted to have this summer, at home, and her bandmates wouldn’t fault her for that. So, it would be the TXNY75 lineup as they’d had it in New York who would attempt to break into Philadelphia over the summer. Smackle had already – to no one’s surprise – done extensive research on potential venues, just as she had been somehow finding time to lay down finishing touches on their second album, which would make its way into public awareness as the band started its Philly adventures.

Farkle would still make his way down to Austin for a visit, though not until the tail end of the summer, and only for a week or two. He had been invited into some internship, which would have prevented him from making his previously planned visit, regardless of whether or not the girls were in Philly. As for the rest of the group, their various plans were at present time unclear. What they did know was that, at some point, Ray was set to go off and visit the college he’d been accepted into… up in New York. Asher was going with him, and Mrs. Friar had volunteered herself to accompany them, dutifully taking on the position of mother, guiding along her first boy on this step, regardless of how briefly he had been among them. He was family now, and that was all. Ray had only gotten so far as to say thanks, but Lucas knew it meant more to him than the words could have expressed.

With the final days looking to be a succession of studying, and test taking, and sleep – hopefully – somewhere in between, while they could not and would not completely forget the departure, they had one thing to look forward to, one thing to consider as something very good… Herself a graduating senior, Julianne Shelby was set to host the yearly basketball teams party, before handing over the reins to her little brother Scott. And this year they would have plenty to celebrate, wouldn’t they, with the return of the teams in the fall to come…

TO BE CONTINUED


	219. Their Farewell For Distance

Once the trip off to Philadelphia had been confirmed, once it became a reality, Maya couldn’t help but admit to herself there were some parts of it she was very much looking forward to. Everything with the band, absolutely, that would be a highlight. And the twins’ first birthday… It was hardly believable that the two of them were already ten months old. And being in the city where her father had grown up, where Riley’s parents had grown up, where the three of them had become the tightly knit friends they had become when they were all their ages… She really wanted it all to happen.

And there would also be her half-siblings.

They had already made arrangements, that her third week away would be spent up in New York. She would be staying with Farkle and his family (because, although they had offered to host her, the thought of living under the same roof as her birth father still didn’t sit well with her) but she would be spending that week with Sam, and Cara, and Eliza, and little Wyatt. As far as she was concerned, if she could make it through the whole week without setting eyes on Kermit, she would count it a success.

She would at least get to meet the quartet’s mother, her father’s second wife. In the beginning, back in February when she had first come into contact with Sam and the others, she’d been understandably apprehensive on the subject of their mother, and the position she held in the grand scheme of things. She knew it wasn’t as though Kermit had met her and left Maya and her mother for this woman, but for as long as she’d known about the existence of her father’s new family, he might as well have done exactly that. For years, she had been this unseen being who had played a hand in wrecking her family.

When she’d met Sam, when she’d started talking with him, and with the girls, she would try not to bring their mother up, didn’t want to run the risk of coming off like she hated someone who was very dear to them. But then as their calls and messages multiplied, Maya grew to sense that they – well, Sam and Cara at least, as little Eliza was maybe too young to understand – realized her apprehension. Over time, the eldest two had slowly come to introduce the subject of their mother, Abigail, into conversations, in time revealing the kind of person she was, and what she thought of her being in touch with her young siblings.

She wanted it to happen. She encouraged it to happen. She had always known that her husband had been previously married, that he’d had a daughter before, though they were estranged, and though she had never forced Kermit to re-establish contact, when she had found out that Maya and Sam had found one another, she had been genuinely pleased. The envelope containing the drawings that Sam had sent his sister had been addressed in a feminine looped handwriting she’d known at once had to be his mother’s. She’d wanted to ensure the parcel reached its destination, as a note inside the envelope had explained. _Sammy is a wonderful little artist, but his handwriting might have confused a postal worker or two._ Seeing the letter from her brother, and the original envelope contained within the bigger, padded one, Maya had been forced to agree. And in a way it had told her everything she needed to know about the woman.

They had met since then, in the same manner Maya had met Cara, and Eliza, and Wyatt. She had popped into the background of one of their calls, and they had briefly spoken. Her smiling face had everything of her children that hadn’t come from Kermit, and it was sort of bittersweet. On the one hand, it made her see she really was a genuinely wonderful person, someone she couldn’t really make herself hate. On the other hand… this was the woman who had managed to keep her father’s attentions, while Maya and her mother had failed…

They had spoken several more times since that first encounter, some conversations lengthier than others. When she had heard about Maya’s coming to New York to spend a week with the kids, she had long attempted to get her to come and stay with them, at the house, insisting they would love to have her, to the point where Maya sort of felt bad for continuing to turn her down. She would put it on the excuse that it was her only chance to get to see Farkle that summer, though deep down she had a good feeling Abigail knew the real reason for her not wanting to stay at the house. She never said anything about it, only expressed her excitement at finally getting to meet Maya face to face, when she would escort the kids to meet her in the city.

Sam and Cara and Eliza were all still over the moon at the prospect of spending a week with their big sister. Every time they talked they would tell her about this thing they wanted to do with her, or that place they wanted to show her, as though she hadn’t grown up in the city herself. They were so excited, she would never point it out.

The months they had all been getting to know each other had really been a transformation, it had been… the creation of their relationship, as siblings. They might not have known one another all that long, but it had quickly come to be that they weren’t strangers anymore. They were family. No amount of hesitation or apprehension remained in any of them. Maya, especially, couldn’t have dreamed it any better. They were excited to see her, and she… she counted the days when she’d get to stroll through New York with her brothers and sisters.

TO BE CONTINUED


	220. Their Farewell For Changed Plans

Whenever he’d walk into his room, his eyes would always seem to want to go to the small pile of vibrant yellow t-shirts sitting neatly folded on top of his dresser. The camp shirts, the ones that would brand him as a counselor to the kids he’d be looking after throughout the summer. He could have put them in his closet, or in a drawer somewhere, but he doubted it would make much of a difference.

He had hesitated at first, whether or not he’d still take the job, after he’d found out Maya would be headed to Philadelphia after all, but in the end, he had decided to stick with it. In a way, he could have seen the potential of doing the job without her as a reminder that she wasn’t there, that she wouldn’t be there, until just before school started, but what it had ended up coming to, as he considered the matter, was that keeping the job, doing it, would remind him of the plans they’d made, and would make him feel closer to her than to just sit around half the time doing any random thing. This had been something they had planned on doing, and even though she wouldn’t get to do it, he would… He would do it for the both of them.

And the shirts were yellow… like some sign… reminding him of her.

He wasn’t deluding himself. He knew that spending the entire summer without her would be hard. It would be painful, an ache powerful enough to border on the physical. They loved one another enough that it _would_ hurt, under any circumstance. _This_ circumstance… well, it would make that trip with her family a couple years back feel like nothing.

The entire summer, even without having started already, was a whole other beast than the one it had started off shaping up to be when they’d been figuring out what they would do. Even with the whole situation of the ban hanging over their heads, they had been looking forward to something as close to a regular summer for them and their friends. A last summer in high school… But now Maya would be gone, Riley, too. Smackle wouldn’t come. Farkle would only come, briefly, at the end of the summer, Asher and Ray would be gone a while, his mother with them… and who knew what the others would end up doing.

At this point, keeping the counselor job felt more and more like the right decision.

Farkle had offered to fly him up to New York in the week where Maya would be up there, staying with him. Lucas had come close to taking him up on the offer, more than once. But he had declined, respectfully. He knew what this week was meant to be. Maya, her siblings… If he went up there to join her, it would just get in the way of her getting to hang out with her brothers and sisters. He wouldn’t do that to her, for however much they would both have wanted to spend that week together.

“I’m really sorry I won’t get to be there earlier,” Farkle had told him a few days past as they talked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lucas had insisted. He knew Farkle sympathized with him, with Maya, over this separation, the ban, all of it. It made it easy for him to understand what this apology really meant. The one he’d marked for being as good as his brother, his faraway friend… He knew Lucas was hurting, knew he’d be hurting even more once Maya was off to Philadelphia. He wanted to be there with him, somehow diminish that pain.

“Do you think you’ll try talking to them again?” he’d asked after that, and Lucas had sighed.

Would he? Would he put himself through that whole ordeal again, risking another door closed in his face? Of course, he wanted to… He was never going to abandon, not when it was her, but… he couldn’t. Not now. Leaving, going to Philly for the summer, was already hard on her, much as there were things she looked forward to. He knew that. And he knew how it had affected her and her relationship with her parents after they’d refused him the last time.

Maybe, by some miracle, he would go out there and things would be different. Maybe, this time, they would let him in, and things would be fixed… But what were the odds, really? Right now, the odds were not in their favor, and the last thing he wanted was to upset her via their refusal of him, just as they were about to leave.

So, he wouldn’t go and try again. Not now. He’d have to wait… wait for fall, wait for their return… So far away…

He hadn’t answered Farkle, not with words, but the drawn-out silence seemed to have done well enough in granting his answer. Farkle had bowed his head, understanding.

His eyes were drawn to the shirts again. He wouldn’t be alone, would he? Rebecca had taken a job there, too, and Sophie, as well. And there’d be the kids… Those were bound to occupy his time and his mind plenty. That, and the museum… and those of his friends who would be staying in Austin, the whole summer or most of it… And his family… And practicing basketball again before the new season in the fall… And preparing for his senior year… The whole summer would be gone in the blink of an eye, and then… then she’d be back here with him. The weeks would melt away… they would…

He stared at the shirts… He squeezed his eyes shut. He could still see them. The weeks would just drag by, wouldn’t they?

TO BE CONTINUED


	221. Their Farewell For Split Teams

The school year was over… Well, officially they had one more day, the next day, but all their finals were done, which made the necessity of showing up for that last day feel a little less… necessary… Plenty of them probably wouldn’t bother showing up, though plenty more would go, just to be with their friends, or because their parents wouldn’t have them skipping, or because… because… As far as Maya and her friends were concerned, there’d be no skipping. This was their last shot, wasn’t it? Until summer’s end…

Well, that was tomorrow. Tonight, they had a party to go to.

Maya was getting ready now. Nadine was coming to pick her up soon, along with Riley. She could have driven herself at this point. She had her permit now, she’d go on errands, pick ups, drop offs, all of it. But then she had to go and discover something of an anxiety in her about cars and parties. She hadn’t seen the feeling coming, not by a long shot, but then she’d thought about it and she swore her scar hurt. She hadn’t told anyone about it, certain that _someone_ would have cracked a Harry Potter joke and completely missed the point. Either that or they would have felt sorry for her, and she didn’t need that now.

So, Nadine was coming to pick her up.

She wondered if the party would feel weird. Back when the teams had still been active, the party would host both teams and that was all, no one else invited… well, Riley had special permission. Either way, that meant twenty-five of them there, the lineup evolving every year as some players graduated, and other players joined the team, but the numbers never changed. Only since the teams had been disbanded, there had been no new recruits, only graduates, meaning the guest list shrank and shrank.

Though they had Scott there, on principle, the last teams they’d had, when Maya and Lucas and the rest of their class had been freshmen, had seen seven of their members graduate, and this year eight more were going away. This left the nine of them who’d been fortunate enough to be starting sophomore year when the teams were disbanded and would now be seniors as they were reinstated.

It might not have meant a lot to people beyond their little group (and getting littler still), but this whole thing, the scandal, it had bound them all together, may well keep them bound for years to come. Maya could just imagine running into one or another, ten years on, and they would remember… They’d remember the last two years, and they would remember how they’d kept to their traditions, because, no matter what, they had never stopped being part of the teams, even when they were told there wouldn’t be any.

“Maya, Nadine’s here!” her mother called out from above, just as she was inspecting her completed look in the mirror. She gave herself a nod and went up the stairs.

Next year’s party would be the weird one, she realized. It was one thing to see some of their numbers go away. Next year’s party would mean the new teams would be there, the ones about to be formed in the fall to come. At the most, nine players from the last active teams… There’d be more of the new players than there’d be of the old ones. Even if they would have been playing with the newbies for a whole year by then, the last three parties had been the same people…

“Hey, Hart, the finals are over, why’s your brow still giving math face?” Nadine asked with a chuckle when Maya climbed into her car.

“Don’t ask,” she sighed, shaking her head. Riley, sitting with her in the back, gave her a quizzical look, but again Maya waved it off. This was nothing, just her brain being weird. The unfortunate collision between the end of finals and the departure for Philadelphia in three days’ time probably.

They drove off, cranking up the radio to get in the party mood just a bit, though this mostly for the benefit of the two of them in the back. Then, as they pulled up to the Shelby house and the car was turned off, bringing silence into the vehicle, Nadine turned in her seat to face her friends.

“This is going to be my last one of these,” she declared, looking over to the house for a moment before turning back to them.

“What do you mean?” Riley asked, but Maya understood, and she blinked.

“You’re not joining next year,” she stated, and Nadine shook her head. Riley was the one blinking with surprise now.

“I’m really sorry, I just… It’s senior year, and it’s not like I’m going to keep playing in college.” She sighed. “I need to stay focused on my studies.”

Maya understood. Of course, she understood. Truth be told, she’d pretty much expected this. Already she’d been hesitant about continuing in the past, which had led to the deal they’d made, which had led Maya to improve her grades and get into advanced classes. If the teams hadn’t been disbanded, she would probably have stopped playing already. And Maya… Well, she’d already decided she’d try out, even if hearing Nadine confirm _she_ wouldn’t try out now left her wondering if maybe she should opt out after all.

“Team or no team, you’re coming to that party next year. You’re a part of us,” Maya told her.

“Scott will bend the rules for you,” Riley assured her. Nadine smiled.

“You’re going to play the girlfriend card, huh?”

“Yeah, I am,” Riley beamed brightly at that, making Maya and Nadine laugh.

“Well, one way or the other, let’s make this a good one, okay?” Nadine held out her fist, and it was bumped and bumped again before they got out of the car and moved toward the house.

TO BE CONTINUED


	222. Their Farewell For the Year

Ray was driving Mrs. Friar’s car as they pulled up to Shelby house. Lucas had tried not to chuckle, seeing how Ray had promised his mother he would be so careful with the car when she handed over the keys. Now the two of them were getting out to head toward the house along with Asher, Zay, and Dylan. Maya and Nadine were already standing outside, waiting for them.

“I thought you guys would be here already,” Maya told him as they joined them.

“We would have been, except my mom caught us on the way out and started taking pictures like we were on our way to prom or something,” Lucas told her, making her bite back a laugh. “But we’re here now,” he declared, and she nodded, linking her arm with his and leading him toward the backyard and the party. By the looks of it, they were the last ones to arrive, which hadn’t stopped the rest of them. The party was already in full swing.

“So, where to first?” Maya asked. “The hoops, the pool, the food?” she pointed to each venue with an out-swept arm and a jolly announcer voice. He met this display with the look of someone giving his options some deep thought. Even before he announced his choice, he had a solid feeling he knew exactly what would happen as soon as he said it, which proved to be right.

“Could go for a sw…”

“Race you!” she disconnected from his arm and was off like an arrow, leaving him to chase after her, watching as she kicked off her sandals and peeled off her dress, abandoned them where they fell, and revealed her swimsuit underneath, even as he did his best to do the same. He had no shot at catching up with her, so all he could do was skid to a stop and watch as she leapt, pulled her legs close to her body and splashed into the water like a blond cannonball.

“Well, I’ve lost, what’s left but to…” he turned heel and let himself fall back once he’d reached the edge and she’d resurfaced. She was still laughing when he also resurfaced and swam in place in front of her, right as he spotted… “Oh, stampede, hold on,” he pulled her off to the side just as seven or so of their teammates came toward the pool at a run, diving, and diving, and diving… Lucas had his eyes and mouth shut the whole time as water splashed them, and splashed, and splashed. All he could hear – which made it hard for him to keep his mouth shut through the stampede – was Maya, clamped on to his arm but also squealing and laughing with each of the new arrivals in the water.

By the time the last of them had landed with a mad splash, the water was still rolling and rolling, keeping them bobbing about where they stood.

“Yeah… the party’s started alright,” Lucas managed to say, laughing, as he blinked away the water in his eyes. She just laughed, giggled, and he could guess his hair was every which way but where it belonged right about now. _She_ , of course, looked like a mermaid, magical and mystifying. He made a quick dip underwater, coming up again and sweeping his hair back. “Better?” he asked, and she nodded, though she also reached up to adjust here and there.

In that moment, neither of them was thinking about three days from now. Neither of them was thinking about the long summer apart. In that moment, both of them were thinking that they were here, with their friends, with each other, closing one more year as was customary, at the Shelby house, with the basketball teams. Before long, they were pulled into a sort of impromptu game, tossing the ball floating around the pool, with Ray and Asher.

Once they’d leave the water, they would go and fill up a couple of plates of food and find their usual spot to sit and eat, sometimes talking just the two of them, other times chatting with one or another who would come and talk with them.

“How long do you think it’ll be before this thing turns into another shoot off?” Maya asked, nodding to the basketball hoop across the yard.

“I give it an hour,” Lucas estimated.

“Can’t believe it’s been two years since they broke the teams,” she sighed, picking at her slice of pizza, eating some of the toppings off before she’d eat the slice itself.

“Time crawls, time flies…” he nodded. “My gran used to say that when I was little.” Right there, for a moment, they both came perilously close to falling back into the subject they’d been doing so well to avoid, but he sighed and pushed it away, focusing on her instead, on the party and their friends.

This year, just ended, definitely felt like it had twisted and turned with time. On the one hand it seemed impossible that it was over already, but on the other – if they actually allowed themselves to think about the situation with the accident and everything that had followed, it felt like an eternity… So long since they’d been allowed to just be themselves, whenever and wherever they wanted, not just where her parents couldn’t see.

He looked at her, smiling, laughing, as Riley and Julianne Shelby were showing her some pictures on Julianne’s phone, and – because he _wasn’t_ thinking about the accident or the ban – he was just happy and content. His plate emptied and hers, too, he got up from where he sat, and he held out his hand to her. It wasn’t just swimming, and eating, and throwing the ball… There was dancing, too. She took the hand he’d offered, and they marched off to join the half dozen already hopping and swaying.

TO BE CONTINUED


	223. Their Farewell For a Summer

Already by the end of one of these parties, you understood the ‘rules,’ the biggest one of them being the cluster effect. As spread out as they’d all be throughout the yard, there would be those moments where they would start to gravitate toward one another, one small group growing, and growing, and growing, until it was all of them in one place. And those were the best moments.

They clustered on the dance floor that night, Maya, and Lucas, and their friends, teammates of old, teammates of… maybe the future, if they joined again in the fall. They were all there, and the music moved them, and everything was as it should be. She’d be looking at him, seeing him put his dance class moves on display but also throwing in something sillier, just to make her laugh. And he’d be looking at her, his mermaid on land, with that laugh like a magic spell…

When they started to drift off again, to the pool, or the food, or the hoops, or just to sit around, they walked on, around the yard for a while, his arm around her shoulders. Neither of them said a word, just enjoying things as they were, though after a while it seemed like they knew it wasn’t just that. The silence occupied the space where neither of them wanted to say what they needed to say. She was leaving in just three days. Tomorrow there’d be school, and the day after that she’d be packing, making sure she forgot nothing, helping her parents do the same thing, and the day after that…

This evening was like the end already. The long summer would be upon them come morning.

She stuck to his side as they walked, their steps together so much she might have closed her eyes and let him direct the both of them. Instead, she reached up to take the hand he had draped over her shoulders, and she pulled on his arm, looking back at him. _Follow me._

They went into the house, went into the basement. And, while their friends and teammates carried on dancing, and swimming, and chatting and running around, they marked the party with an asterisk.

Some time later, dressed but still huddled together on the basement couch, there had been nothing left for them to do but to address what they hadn’t wanted to address before. She was leaving soon. They wouldn’t see each other again for so long, two months and some… It might as well have been a year.

“Here, I want you to take it with you,” he told her, reaching into his pocket, pulling out the watch just as she’d known he would. She closed her hand around it, closed her eyes against the tears too stubborn to stay out of sight. “Hey…” he cupped her cheek, pulling her face up to look at him, kissing her gently. “We’ll be alright,” he spoke, his voice a constant reassurance. And to some degree it did its work, but it could only do so much, especially when she saw a rebel tear in the corner of his eye, too.

They could be brave as much as their young hearts could muster, but when it came down to it… it was just a mask. They were still sad, still grieved. The whole thing still felt wrong, even after she’d submitted herself to it. Maybe in a few days’ time, when she was in Philadelphia with her family, when he’d be here in Austin, starting as a camp counselor, they would be a little better, or maybe they’d just be going through the motions, who knew. Right now… Right now, they weren’t parted yet, and the fact that they would be felt like the bravest thing they could do would be to hold on to one another and refuse to be parted.

“Maya? Lucas? You guys down there?” Julianne Shelby’s voice pulled them back to reality some time later, and they looked up to find her coming down the steps until she could see them. “Hey, I was starting to think you’d left.” Looking at their faces, the girl could understand they’d been thinking about Maya’s imminent departure, and her face softened in understanding. “You want to come up? Shoot off’s about to start,” she pointed over her shoulder. “If you just want to stay here though…”

It took a moment, the two of them looking to each other, trying to see what the other wanted to do, but finally they got up from the couch, swiping at their faces for tears before following Julianne. By the time they made it out into the yard and to the hoops, where the rest of them had already gathered, they would have done their best to let their faces appear as normal as they could, which was to say ‘like they hadn’t been crying.’ Whether anyone noticed that they had been, they couldn’t say.

There’d been no telling whether they’d do well in the shoot off or not, their minds so far from it. They weren’t foreseeing much success, although they did hang on a while. Lucas finished sixth by the time he missed. Maya was still hanging on, but then that was somewhat to be expected between the two of them. He had encouraged her, every time she’d get the ball again, and she’d keep shooting. In the end, it came down to her and Scott Shelby, the reigning champion from the previous year’s party.

And Maya won.

They couldn’t say for sure, and they wouldn’t ask him if he had actually done it, but they were almost sure Scott had bowed out in her favor, missing his last shot on purpose. Or maybe she had just won fair and square. By the end of it she had been like a girl on a mission, expelling frustration with each toss of the ball. Whichever way had been the real one, there was no telling, and it wouldn’t matter. Maya smiled when she won, and Lucas swept her off the ground, planting her on his shoulders and parading her around the yard, and that was how they would remember it.

TO BE CONTINUED


	224. Their Farewell For Junios

The last day of school, unnecessary as it had been known to be even before it had started, where academics were concerned, had only lasted to lunch time, at which point they had all been dismissed on to their summers, something most of them were all too glad to get started on.

Maya and Lucas and the rest of them had soon found themselves gathered around their usual tables down at the diner, in what turned into some kind of going away party for Maya and Riley/graduation party for Ray. It wasn’t long though that ‘celebrating’ the departure showed itself for the discomfort that it was, so they had all been more than happy to concentrate on Ray’s finishing off his last year of high school.

All of them but Scott would be seniors now, something that only finally sunk in here. With this year ended, they were now just in wait of this final year, and it seemed impossible to consider it. Hadn’t they just started high school? Hadn’t they just started _middle_ school? In just a few months’ time, it would have been five years since Maya Hart had moved to Austin and everything had changed… On the one hand, it was startling to think it had been so long, while on the other… By now, it almost felt like she’d always been there anyway.

When the time came for them all to split off toward home, it had felt like they had lead in their legs. But they had gotten up, and they had looked to each other. This was it. Tomorrow would be too crazy for her to get away, and he couldn’t come over, could he? And the morning after that she’d be gone.

“We did all our crying last night, right?” she spoke quietly, and he nodded in reply.

“I can’t wait to hear about everything you’ll do,” Lucas told her, smiling. “The band, the city… the brothers and sisters.” He pulled a smile from her for that, and he held her face in his hands then, like he wanted to freeze the expression there, have it be the last thing he would have seen of her here before the next time he’d see her, on a computer screen.

They kissed, the kind that seemed unwilling to end, the kind that was to be the last one for too long, and then they went on their way… Two months… two months and some… Oh how they would have run back to each other if they thought it could change anything.

He went home, stopping just inside the door, feeling simply… alone. She was still here, but she was as good as gone, and he was starting to feel it.

“Long day?” He looked up, finding his father coming down from upstairs. Lucas shrugged. “Goodbyes?” his father guessed. Lucas nodded. “Right,” his father sighed, pressing a hand to his shoulder. “Well, I don’t know if this is going to make things any better for you, but your mother’s decided we’re going out to dinner tonight, to celebrate you boys finishing the year. Go on to shower and change before she gets her hands on you.”

Well, that got a chuckle out of him at least. So, he went upstairs, got in the shower. By the time he was finishing up getting dressed, having a pretty good idea of the semi formal state of the evening, Ray was there, too, doing much of the same. It had just become normal now, having him there. He was one of them now, would still be, even after he went off to college. As methods of acquiring brothers went, this one had been as unexpected as they came, but here they were…

“You doing okay?” Ray asked him, and Lucas sort of wished he could go around and not have his state of mind so self evident that everyone asked how he was doing, but then he could have been going around with the biggest smile on his face and they would probably still have known he wasn’t okay, so…

“I don’t know… maybe… not really…” he could only say.

“At least tonight should be entertaining,” Ray pointed out, and on that he was right. Dinner with Melinda Friar was never a dull affair.

Maya got home in much the same state _he_ had done, the sinking feeling of knowing she wouldn’t see Lucas again for two months, him or most of her friends…

Looking around the living room though, she was left to remember there was no turning back anymore. The whole room was chaos, suitcases and bags, items waiting to be packed, just everywhere. Two adults, one teen, two babies, three dogs, two months… They might have needed a truck at this point.

The dogs being brought along hadn’t always been part of the plan, but pretty soon, it seemed like the only reasonable solution. They couldn’t leave them with Riley’s family, since she was coming along, and even then, saddling someone with the dogs for two whole months and then taking them away didn’t seem fair, no fairer than parting themselves from the pups for that long. So, they would bring them, too, for all the additional troubles of the trip this would bring.

There were lists and lists, her parents adding to them whenever they would think of something they needed to bring, or something they needed to do, the better not to forget. Her mother had somehow managed to make it so she could carry on doing her job for the theater from off in Philadelphia, so that was one more thing that needed to be seen to before they could go.

By lunch time the next day, her own things were pretty much packed already. Her closet looked decimated, dresser drawers, too. She had pencils and sketchbooks, though she told herself if she ever ran out of those she could just buy more over there. Everything else, little things here and there, she got those together, too, and her suitcases and bags were brought up to the living room pile up.

She helped her parents throughout that day by looking after the twins and the dogs, the better to leave the two of them to focus on the packing. Right about now, it might have been the best solution for all parties involved. She couldn’t be upset with her sisters around her, it just wasn’t possible. The two of them still looked so much alike, fine brown hair and blue eyes the pair of them, but beyond that, they had never abandoned who they’d been from the start.

Quiet Gracie, her little Mouse-Mouse, sat peacefully in her big sister’s arms, while sunny little Nellie was making good use of her crawling abilities, enough that, after a while, Maya was forced to walk around to follow her, in case she got a little carried away and went bumping into anything. Grace wasn’t crawling, not yet, though it almost seemed a consensus between her parents and her sister that she _could_ crawl, just chose not to, preferring to sit and observe the world.

Part of her wanted to have the twins there when she’d go up to New York to see Sam and the others. She knew it wasn’t going to happen, that it’d be too complicated, but she did sort of imagine a time where it could be all of them, Maya, Nellie and Gracie, Sam, Cara, Eliza and Wyatt… Two of her worlds, brought together. Maybe some day, maybe.

She’d set down Gracie just in time to stop Nellie from running into the corner of a dresser, scooping her up, and while Maya treated the close call with a trepidation in her heart, her little sister just giggled like they were playing a game.

“You’re a goofy little duck, aren’t you?” Maya had to smile, kissing her cheek. She didn’t know if her parents really would have gone out there without her if she hadn’t changed her mind, but she knew that if they had gone and she’d missed this little one’s birthday, she _would_ have been so sad.

Looking down, she blinked for a moment before grinning.

“Well, look who decided to get going,” she looked to Gracie on the ground, presently looking to be attempting to get up on her feet. Careful not to disturb her, Maya moved to the door of the nursery, clicking her fingers to get her parents’ attention. When they looked up, she waved them over, with a pointed look that told them to hurry, and a smile to assure them this was a good thing. They made it just in time for the triumphant – if very brief – moment where Gracie Hunter stood up, before thumping back on her diapered behind and looking entirely happy for it.

The look of surprise and joy on her parents’ faces, as they went to take up their sneaky quiet one, settled into smiles all around, the five of them stood in that nursery as happy as any could hope to be. Maya looked at them, her parents, her sisters… Summer was upon them, and for all the private sorrows she would feel, she reminded herself there would be moments like these, mixed in with the rest… and that was something to look forward to.

TO BE CONTINUED


	225. Their Summer in Flight

For all that Maya had imagined about flying from Texas to New York with four adults, two teenagers, one child, two infants, and three dogs, with baggage to attend them for a summer away from home, the process of actually getting to be on the plane and sat in their seats was every bit the definition of a rude awakening. Between Riley’s parents, and _her_ parents, and Riley herself, and the twins, Maya felt as though she was the only one who knew how to keep a level head and not surrender to stress.

But they pulled it off in the end. The suitcases and other bags were sent off where they needed to go, the dogs were handed over as well, after copious amounts of reassuring cuddles and scratches, and Maya convinced her parents to let Riley and her take care of Nellie and Gracie, so that they and the Matthews could relax and enjoy the flight. Or, as she put it, the four of them girls were going to sit together.

Gracie had been handed off to Riley, while Maya kept Nellie, the logic being that it would be easier on them and the other passengers on the flight if they didn’t pair calm to calm and loud to loud.

“I wish I had a little sister…” Riley sighed with a smile when Gracie laid her head down against her and looked ready to doze off. Maya looked at her, in the midst of pulling out trick upon trick of her big sister magic to keep the fretful Nellie from slipping into typical plane baby mode.

“Well, you can always make those big Riley eyes at your mom and dad, they’ve still got time to make you one,” she suggested, imitating the face in question. “Of course, it’s a fifty-fifty thing, you could end up with another little brother…”

“Hey!” Auggie complained from his seat at Riley’s side. The girls turned their heads to look at him.

“Don’t you want a little sister, Auggie?” Maya chuckled. The boy was just growing before their eyes it seemed. She remembered when he had been a baby himself, and now here he sat, eleven years old, very near the age she’d been when she’d come to Texas. In a year’s time, he’d be off to middle school, climbing those steps where she and his sister and all their friends had sat every morning before classes started… If she ever thought it impossible that so many years had gone by already, she only had to look at him, didn’t she?

“I don’t want to have to go through _them_ having another baby,” was Auggie’s response, pointing off to where his parents sat, across the aisle from them, along with Shawn and Katy. Maya and Riley laughed, having expected a hard no, or a surprising yes, instead of this bit of external logic, which really shouldn’t have been unexpected, coming from this boy.

“Fair enough…” Maya shrugged, while Riley held on to Gracie like she was the last remnant of her chance at ever having a sister.

It took just over an hour of funny faces and cheery songs before Nellie Hunter went the way of her twin and fell asleep in Maya’s arms

“So, Scott’s coming over to Philly the week I’ll be in New York, huh?” Maya asked Riley. Her friend looked at her, surprised. “Heard you guys talking at the team party. Why didn’t you say anything?” Riley wouldn’t speak, which was as good as saying it was exactly what she thought. “You didn’t want me to feel bad about not getting to see _my_ boyfriend over the summer.” Again, no response. “Riley, it’s fine. It’s not like I wouldn’t have found out sooner or later.”

When she still seemed uneasy about bringing the subject up around her friend, they ended up getting a movie on for the both of them and Auggie, which lasted them for the remainder of the flight, all the while keeping the little ones asleep on their laps. By the time they did wake up, the plane was on the verge of touching down in Philadelphia.

“Auggie, bag time,” Riley turned to her brother, and he gave a sharp nod of understanding: time for him to do his job. He opened the bag containing whatever amounts of food they might have needed for the twins over the flight. He went so far as to ask to be the one to feed Gracie, and Riley turned back to Maya with a smirk. The boy had never given a straight answer, but maybe he _could_ get on board to the idea of a little sister.

The twins were returned into the care of their mother and father as they all got off the plane and split up, some to retrieve baggage and dogs, others to go and pick up the pair of rental cars they would need to get out of there. Riley’s grandparents had offered to come and pick them up, but with everything they needed to carry, it was better for all parties if they met them at their house once they arrived.

Messages had been sent on to boyfriends and other friends, letting them know that they had all made it to Philadelphia in one piece, while they waited for the dogs to be returned to them. Maya had been a bit concerned at the thought of leaving them, after Zay had done what he did best and filled her head with horror stories of animals on planes. But then there they were, Tuck and Ghost and Queen, the picture of eagerness to see their favorite girl, and not a problem in sight. She didn’t know what she would have done if she’d had to spend the summer without them, too.

The two families split off to their respective vehicles for the drive to the small house they’d rented for the summer, and as she got in the backseat of their rented minivan with the twins, Maya looked to her father at the wheel, that special breath in him that came with being in the city where you’d grown up, and she actually couldn’t wait to see what this summer would bring for them.

TO BE CONTINUED


	226. Their Summer in Philly

She’d been curious, obviously, when her mother had told her about how all of them would share the house for the summer. It would be Riley and Auggie and her – at first – sharing a room, which had slightly derailed any thoughts the two friends had had for what they’d been calling their trial run for being college roommates, if they – hopefully – ended up at the same school. Maya had declared that all they had to do was to treat Riley’s little brother as their unexpected third roommate, which had made Riley laugh. They hadn’t told Auggie about this, which could only end up being funnier.

The whole thing reminded Maya a bit of when her mother had shown her pictures of their little house in Austin before moving there almost five years ago. Her parents and Riley’s parents had shown the three of them kids some pictures of the rental house, of the room they were to share. It had two sets of bunk beds – Auggie had called dibs on one of the top bunks – which would be necessary once Smackle came down from New York to join them in a few days. And when Maya went to visit her siblings and Scott visited, he would sleep… well, in the living room. No way was Mr. Matthews letting his daughter and her boyfriend sleep in the same room, clearly.

It wasn’t as though it was the first time Maya went to Philadelphia. Even before Shawn had come into the picture, she’d visited here when Riley would go to visit her grandparents. And she’d been there, with him, after he had come along, too. But spending the summer here would be different. She would get to really know it, from this whole other perspective, to live in it, not just visit it. If it hadn’t been for the circumstances of their coming here, maybe she would have been even more excited to experience this.

Not that she wasn’t, excited that is… She’d gotten to a place in her head and in her heart where she really was happy to be here. But she wished she could be wholly happy about it, and that wasn’t going to happen. There would always be one corner in her that was reserved solely for the underlying pain of it all.

Before long they would be headed into their senior year. A brand new year, their last in high school… and basketball was coming back… so much changing around them… In her secret heart, all she wanted for it was for them to be able to start afresh, to put the accident and the ban and all that nastiness behind them, locked away in this junior year now ended, where it couldn’t touch them anymore. She could only look to the notion there… Reality had another thought on the subject, didn’t it?

Oh, she’d told herself she wouldn’t get into all of that while they were out here, hadn’t she? _Leave it in the basement…_ She reached into her pocket, closed her hand around the watch. There he was, here with her, in their own way.

Arriving at the house, they’d gotten the dogs into the backyard where they could happily roam after being put through the flight and the drive. The twins had been passed on to their big sister and her friends along with the keys, leaving the parents to start unloading the car and the minivan. Auggie Matthews had been granted the task of opening the door to their summer home, and he did this with all the flourish it deserved.

The house belonged to a family who had gone on their own vacation for the summer. The kids had been told again and again that they needed to be careful not to break anything, that they wanted to leave the place in equal or better condition than they’d found it if possible.

As eager as he’d been to see the room, Auggie had gotten distracted looking at the selection of video games on a shelf in the living room, so the girls had gone up to the room with the twins. Smackle had already stated, upon learning of the bunk beds, that she preferred to sleep where her feet could touch the ground at a moment’s notice, so they had decided that she would sleep in the bed under Auggie’s reserved top bunk. Maya would take the second top bunk, leaving Riley to sleep in the bed under hers.

“What do you think?” Maya asked Riley as they walked in. From the looks of it, it seemed to be a girls’ room. “This one, or that one?” she pointed to each of the bunks. Riley looked from left to right as she did so. Nellie, in Maya’s arms, followed the motion of her big sister’s arm, too.

“That one,” Riley declared, pointing to the one nearer to the windows.

“Excellent choice,” Maya smiled, jostling her little sister in her arms and getting a laugh from her. “Wanna scoot, Scoot?” Maya asked, setting the girl on the ground, and Nellie promptly went off exploring on her hands and knees. When placed on the ground, too, Gracie looked up to the two of them like she would cry until someone picked her up again, but then she looked around, saw her twin moving off, and she chose to follow her lead instead.

Soon they were able to bring up their suitcases and bags and start to unpack, making the space as much theirs as they could. There was a small shelf set into the wall, at the head of each top bunk, where they could put a few items, and Maya made good use of it, setting a sketchbook and some pencils there, along with the first of the books she had to read for English over the summer.

And she had a couple of pictures. One of them had her and all her friends at last Halloween, costumes and everything. And the other was just Lucas and her, his arms around her and his head on her shoulder, while her arms were stretched out and holding the camera. It had been taken before the accident, it was easy to tell… no scar on her.

She looked at them in that picture, and she smiled even as her heart felt like it twisted, feeling him so far away from her… _Deep breaths… It’s only a summer…_

TO BE CONTINUED


	227. Their Summer in Family

They hadn’t finished with all the unpacking and settling in by the time they took off for Riley’s grandparents’ house, but according to Mr. Matthews his mother had already called twice to find out if they were on their way yet, and she would probably put in a third call by the time they were done, so instead they cut to the chase and piled into the minivan to drive to Mr. Matthews’ childhood home.

Riley’s grandparents would probably have taken them all in if they’d let them, instead of renting the house, but it had been a general consensus that they would be better off this way. Riley’s mother had wagered with Maya’s mother that she’d be catching comments on this for the rest of the summer, and as though to prove her point, they had not been in the house five minutes before the questions started about how much money they were spending to live in these strangers’ house. Katy quelled her laughter in her glass, while Maya and Riley couldn’t help but snicker.

Despite all that, they couldn’t feel anything but at ease when walking into that house. It just breathed with years and years of the family growing under its roof. To think that any other family would ever call it home seemed downright impossible. It was probably a good thing that Riley and Auggie had gone on ahead as soon as they’d arrived, getting embraced by their grandparents, because once Shawn and Katy came up with those twin girls in their arms, the senior Matthews had melted under the power of tiny hands and round blue eyes.

After the greetings, and the usurping of attention by the twins, and the comments over the house, it took no more than ten minutes of their all having arrived at the house before Maya could feel eyes on her… No, not on her, on the scar on her forehead. It was getting to the point where she was strongly considering getting bangs to cover it up, but she didn’t have bangs now, and she was afraid for a moment that either of them would make some comment on ‘that boyfriend of hers’ who’d crashed his car with her in it, but they didn’t. They’d be here for the whole summer… how long before it did come up?

She was saved from whatever potential inquiries they might have made when Riley’s uncle Eric showed up. Auggie very nearly tackled him as he ran to hug him, and Eric Matthews returned to the kitchen with his nephew slung over his shoulder. As far as Maya knew, they were set for a full set of Matthews by the end of the week, with Morgan and Josh set to join their older brothers.

“So, you’re going to be working at the store this summer, huh?” Eric asked Maya a little while later. He had Nellie in his arms, and seeing how the small girl had been so immediately taken with the tall goofy man was about as funny as to see how the feeling was mutual, like they were cut from the same cloth.

“Yeah,” she told him, her shoulders giving the slightest shrug. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to do it, and a job was a job, bringing in more money for the trip fund. But she still hadn’t entirely forgotten about how she was supposed to be a camp counselor over the summer, not a clerk in a store in Philadelphia. “You worked there, right?”

“Yeah,” Eric chuckled. “Oh, there are stories,” he told her, making a face at Nellie, who went wild like it was The Funniest Thing Ever. “There was this girl once…”

“Do I want to hear this?” Maya cut him off, holding up her hand. Eric thought for a moment, seeming to be reliving the memory in his head as he did this, and by the end his face locked into an expression that told her that, whether or not she _should_ hear it, he had decided maybe he shouldn’t verbalize it again. “Hey, try this, blow air in her face,” she told him, nodding to Nellie, the better to change the subject. He looked at her, and she nodded again. So he blew a little puff of air in the babe’s face, and as she seemed to interpret this as a game, she imitated him, her own puff coming out more like blowing a weak raspberry, but the sight of it was enough to captivate the man and make him smile.

They stayed until after dinner, of course. Maya had spent most of the meal just waiting for some question or another that would leave her wishing she was back at their rented house already, or better yet back in her own room, back in Texas. The kids were asked about the school year they’d just ended, and like a champ Auggie Matthews talked on and on, until everyone else wasn’t sure if they had or hadn’t heard the girls’ responses. But then of course they couldn’t escape the subject of senior year, and graduation, college on the horizon…

They were also asked about how the band was doing. Riley’s grandparents and uncle were naturally very devoted to showing their support for her. Maya already knew Alan Matthews had a stack of their CDs at his store. The way he told it, the girls had a feeling more than one client had bought one from his knowing that they had kids or grandkids about their age. Now Maya could just see what would happen once she started working there…

Either way, the three of them were all vocally eager at the prospect of attending one of their shows while they were in Philadelphia. The girls could only say that they hadn’t locked in any dates yet, though they were going to see to that, in the next day or two.

When finally, with all of them tired from the day’s travel, they left the Matthews house and returned to the rental, it wasn’t long before each of them retreated to their beds. Climbing up to her top bunk, Maya set the pocket watch on the small shelf, next to the framed photo of the two of them. She took out her phone now, texting him to say good night. But then he replied, and she wrote again, and he did, too, and it would be an hour more before she finally set her phone down on the shelf and closed her eyes for the night.

TO BE CONTINUED


	228. Their Summer in Two

It would be a few days before she actually managed to call him. The days had been full, each of them, of activities, and visits, and getting familiarized with the store… But then on this day she was, for this fleeting moment, alone at the house with the dogs, out in the yard, so she called him. His face popped up on her screen and it sent her heart soaring so much to see him that it flew right into the corners of her mouth, lifting them into an all-encompassing smile.

“Hi,” he was smiling, too, and oh what she wouldn’t have given just to hold him in her arms right then, so much that she thought she might start crying at any second.

“Hey…” she replied, the smile on her like it would never break.

“Where are you?” he asked, looking at her surroundings.

“Outside the house,” she stretched her arm so the camera could take in more of the yard. She felt a nudge at her back, and a pair of paws tried to climb up to her shoulders.

“Hey, Tuck,” Lucas called to the dog when she pulled him from behind her and into her lap. The dog barked; he had always been the closest to Lucas, no wonder he’d gotten his name from him. “So, how’s it going out there?” he asked her. They had been texting every night, but they wouldn’t really talk about what each of them was doing. They would talk about things they’d seen on the internet, reminiscing on some event or another, or they would talk about basketball, or about the band’s upcoming first show in Philadelphia. It had been booked now, good and official, and since Smackle was set to arrive that evening, they would be starting rehearsals before long.

“Started working at the store,” she shrugged. “We went to a water park yesterday. Gracie didn’t like it, threw a fit worthy of Nell. Dad walked around with her for a while until she’d calm down, so Mom and Nellie and I could stay in the water, but in the end, we just left so that was that.”

She wasn’t going to tell him how the subject of the accident had finally come up the night before, as Riley’s grandparents had come over to the rented house for dinner. Riley had mentioned Scott would be coming over in a little over a week, and somehow this had tracked back to turning to Maya and asking how she was doing, if she still had any issues after the accident.

She had told them that she was fine, that her arm was completely healed – although sometimes it did act up when it would rain for some reason – and that the scar was all she had left and she really didn’t mind it. All they could say on this was that the cut must have been pretty deep for her to be left with so much of a scar to have been left behind, and she’d done her best to close the subject, insisting that it wasn’t that bad, before they could start on Lucas, but there really was no way around it.

The evening hadn’t ended well. She’d been so upset by the time they’d come back here, she was pretty sure the whole reason she had this time to herself this morning was their way of giving her that time, in an apology for the previous night. As a whole, the previous day had made her wish with every cell in her body that they could go back home. If they’d come out here to escape the specter of the last year, it wasn’t working.

“How’s… how’s summer camp?” she made herself ask, so he would start talking and she could just listen to him and ignore the rest.

“It’s good, I mean… it’d be better if…” He didn’t finish the sentence and he didn’t have to. “But the kids are great. There’s this one boy, Scottie, he’s seven, and he _loves_ TXNY. Someone spilled ketchup on my camp shirt a couple days ago and I had no backup so I got on one of the band shirts and he saw it and _flipped out._ ” She burst out laughing, grinning at the thought of this unknown little fan.

“Did you tell him you were dating someone in the band?” she asked in a hush.

“I… Yeah, little bit,” he admitted, and seeing him borderline shy over bragging made her forget all about the night before. “By the way, he says you guys should have shirts in kid sizes, too, because then he could have one.”

“We will get right on that,” Maya promised. “He and Sophie must get on pretty well.”

“Oh, I have to send you a video,” he told her, remembering all at once. “They got into a sing off yesterday.”

They went on talking for an hour and some, and by the time they hung up she had almost forgotten she was so far from him. He felt so near now, and though the distance would stretch between them again before long, for now he was close.

He sent her the video, and sitting there in a backyard in Philadelphia, with her dogs running around, she watched Sophie in her yellow camp shirt, leading a line of kids in matching orange shirts. At the front of the line, walking hand in hand with Sophie, was a short kid bellowing one of her songs as they went. And then Sophie would jump in with him, even for all the assurances she’d give that she could not carry a tune to save her life. Scottie, for his part, sounded like he would easily grow up to not only carry a tune but hold it high over his head like it weighed nothing. Topping this off, the kids walking behind them and, she had to guess, ahead of Lucas and his camera, were bopping their heads along to their singing.

It so warmed her heart, and when her parents and the others would return, she’d still be sitting in the yard, scribbling in a notebook the lyrics, fine tuning a new song inspired off of those camp kids, a good sort of song for walking… She pulled Riley into it, and that evening when Smackle would arrive, they would see about the music. She wanted to get it off to Lucas as soon as possible, for Scottie, for Sophie, for the kids…

TO BE CONTINUED


	229. Their Summer in Happiness

After a week had gone by, Maya found they had all fallen into more of a rhythm of life in Philadelphia. They hadn’t just arrived anymore; the summer was firmly underway. Even the awkwardness of the accident discussion with Riley’s grandparents had faded away. She understood where it came from, she did, and now that it had been put out there, it was done, and they were not going to bring it up again, she knew. Against all odds, she kind of liked working at the store with Riley’s grandfather. And tonight… tonight TXNY75 was holding its first show in Philadelphia.

The three of them were nervous, no doubt, and they’d been getting pep talks from their absent member, back in Austin. Nadine reminded them over and over how they had done plenty of shows by now, that as nervous as they’d been for the first one, it had been such a thrilling moment, like all the shows after it. Just because it was a new city did not mean it had to be anything for them to worry over.

It was turning into quite the event for all of them at the rented house, too. They’d needed to dig deep to find a babysitter for the twins, with all the parents, and the grandparents, uncles and aunt firmly set to attend, but they had found some trusted friends of the Matthews grandparents to look after Nellie and Gracie and – much to his dismay – Auggie, too, and no one would have to miss out. With how their parents were being ‘way too excited about this,’ they almost wished they _hadn’t_ found a sitter.

Parental embarrassment aside, the show had been, as Nadine had promised, nothing to worry about. It had actually felt so, so good to get up on a stage, not to have to think about anything else except the music and giving their audience reason to cheer for them and ask for more. That was exactly what they’d done, too, and their having done not one but two encores had been the highlight of the whole thing and possibly their entire career as a band. By the time they got back to rented house, none of them could have slept if they tried.

They were up all night. Smackle had finally curled up on the couch around four in the morning. Riley had drifted off humming ‘Encore! Encore!’ not half an hour later. Maya was the last left standing, staring at the rising sunlight coming through the window.

“Did you sleep?” She turned her eyes back down to find her parents carrying the twins down the stairs. “Any of you?” her mother asked, reaching to brush at her long blond hair, draped over the couch’s armrest. Maya only pointed in the general direction of her sleeping bandmates. “Are you going to sleep now?” She shrugged, then held out her arms in silent demand. Her mother chuckled and handed her Gracie.

“Hey, Mouse-Mouse,” Maya mumbled, holding her close. Still sleeping, her little sister’s calm breathing near her ears was the thing that finally did her in.

The next thing she knew, she woke up lying on her parents’ bed and it was two in the afternoon. Looking at her phone, she might as well have been asleep for a week, seeing all the messages piled up on there. She’d need a solid hour to read and respond to everything, but for now she was starving and she made her way back downstairs.

“Where’s everyone else?” she asked her parents, finding no trace of the Matthews or Smackle.

“Went to visit the grandparents, took the twins with them,” Shawn told her. “We told them we’d try and meet them there later.” Maya considered this for a moment, and then she knew what she wanted.

“Can we go to the movies instead? Just us three?” Her parents looked to one another, smiling.

“Sure, we can, baby girl,” her mother told her, and that decided it. She hurried back upstairs to change, bouncing back downstairs in no time. The show had left her in such a good place, and she was going to ride that wave however long it went. If she could take her parents along for the ride, it would be all the better. It was all she’d ever wanted, to just get to be happy, hanging with them, like… like before… She had agreed to come because she wanted to find a way for it all to be okay again, and an afternoon at the movies sounded like a good place to start.

They could probably have picked any movie playing and it wouldn’t have mattered so much as the fact that they were out there together, Maya sandwiched in between her mother and father, the ridiculous amount of snacks collected between them being passed from one to the other. Shawn and her were the most adventurous when it came to trying out different candy combinations, and rediscovering this habit of theirs, after far too long without it, had left father and daughter happier with one another than they had been in a long time.

After the movie they went walking around, and Shawn took the two of them to a few places he’d been wanting to show them, including his old high school.

They never went to the Matthews house that day. By the time they returned to the rented house, Riley and Smackle and the others were back, too. They finished out the evening still talking about the previous night’s show, Maya listening with one ear as she worked through the messages. She kept the ones from Lucas for last, knowing they would take the longest. She sent him the video from the show, and he ended up, by the looks of it, texting her all through watching it. His reactions just got her smiling, and smiling… These had been the best two days, and even so far away he had been a part of that.

TO BE CONTINUED


	230. Their Summer in Loneliness

On the days where she would clock in at Riley’s grandfather’s store, Maya would get up with that mindset already. Get up, shower, get dressed, have breakfast, and off she went. Today though, it was her last day working there before she went to New York for a week to stay with Farkle and to spend time with her paternal half-siblings. Though she went through the motions and still showed up on time, her mind was practically off on the road to New York already. And to leave any space at all open for her to think about one other thing was as good as opening up the way for every other thought to run rampant.

To make matters worse, it had been a slow morning. She’d spent most of it so far on shelf stocking duties before ending up at the register, staring into nothing. Every so often her eyes would veer to the pile of CDs on the counter. It was hard not to feel awkward, standing next to those, to the one propped up on display, with her face staring back at her, whenever a client would come by. Sometimes they would see the CDs, see her on the photo, stare back at her, and she’d have to explain the whole thing.

_Yes, that’s me. Yes, I’m in a band. Mr. Matthews’ granddaughter is in the band, too, see, that’s her. That’s why those are here. We’re sort of visiting right now and he’s letting me pick up a few shifts. No, you don’t have to buy one if you don’t want to. Thanks, come again._

By lunchtime, she was leaning against the counter, absently sketching on a piece of scrap paper.

“That’s pretty good.” She looked over her shoulder, finding Alan Matthews looking at her drawing as he sorted through the mail that had just come in.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, continuing to draw the couple who’d been sitting on a bench across the street from the store, eating ice cream.

“Doesn’t look a lot like them though,” Mr. Matthews pointed out.

“It’s not them,” she pointed out. Of course, he’d know that. The girl was obviously her, and the boy…

“That your boyfriend?” he asked.

“Lucas,” she nodded, working on his hair. She must have bristled just a bit, like she thought he’d say something about him again, because after a while he set down the mail and came to stand on the other side of the counter, looking at her. She stopped drawing, turned her eyes up to him.

“Looks like a good guy, the way you’re drawing him.”

“The very best. Doesn’t deserve getting treated the way he’s been treated since the accident. Could have happened to anyone, and no one feels worse about it than he does.”

“I’m sure he does,” Mr. Matthews nodded.

Maya looked down to the drawing, to that smile… She could trace it to near perfection with her eyes closed. She had known, as they’d flown off from Austin, that there would be those days where she could manage missing him better than others, and today… today was not one of those days. Today she missed him like crazy, so much that she’d started sketching them instead of the actual couple across the street without even meaning to.

“Listen, I’m sorry for those things I said last week. I’ve been holding on to those feelings since October, since I heard about the accident, and I reacted…”

“Like a parent… like a grandparent,” Maya gave a small smile, and he smiled back. “Accepted.”

“Why don’t you take the afternoon off? Won’t tell the boss,” he held a finger to his lips.

“That’s okay, I want to stay,” she told him, and he was happy to hear it. “So, I’ve been wondering. Why didn’t you ask Riley if she wanted to work here, too?”

“Oh, I thought about it. But you know Riley pretty well, can you picture what would happen if she was left in a place like this for hours on end?” Maya chuckled. She really could see it. “That’s why.”

“Fair enough.”

The rest of the day had been about as peaceful and uneventful as the morning. The one drawing, once completed, had been set aside, and another had been started, this one a ‘commission’ upon Mr. Matthews’ request. He wanted her to do a portrait for his wife, of the two of them. So that was her work for the afternoon, slowly but surely calling up the likeness of Amy Matthews and her husband. She drew them with their house as a backdrop. Mr. Matthews watched it come together as the hours went on, even briefly posing at her request.

“Done,” she declared, just before the store closed for the day.

“Let me see,” Mr. Matthews came up to the counter, and she held up the page. “Wow… look at that,” he smiled. “Thank you, Maya,” he took the page as she held it out to him, and she tipped her head to him in welcome.

The talk with Mr. Matthews had helped to carry her through the rest of the day, for sure, though by the time she was back in her room at the rented house, she felt that lingering loneliness still in her. She pulled the folded drawing of the ice cream couple from her pocket, unfolding it over her bed and taking a picture of it. She sent it to Lucas, pulling the watch from her pocket and keeping in her palm. Feeling the faint ticking of the clock hands inside, like a beating heart, she breathed.

The harder days were going to be part of the summer, and she reminded herself they wouldn’t be the norm, that they hadn’t been. She was going to see Sam and the others soon… Those were going to be some great days, seven days with her siblings, and she couldn’t just count them as seven less without him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	231. Their Summer in Time

Bright and early that morning she would be getting on to a bus that would take her from Philadelphia to New York. She had gotten many an offer for rides, from her father, her mother, Riley’s father, grandfather, uncle, aunt… Likewise, from the other end, Farkle’s father had offered to come get her, and Sam’s mother, even… Kermit. She would take the bus, and that was all.

Already she’d been away from Austin for two weeks and it didn’t seem possible. Hadn’t she been dancing and having fun with her friends at the team party just yesterday? That was always how it went though. Anything could feel like it had just happened, and then you’d stop and go ‘no, that was years ago,’ but it would still feel fresh in your mind.

Her father, her birth father, walking out on them, _that_ had been years ago, and the last few days she’d been thinking about how she could still remember it, too… like it had been yesterday. And then she’d think about how he had this other family now, all of them people she had grown to care about in spite of what bound them all together.

Did she ever find herself thinking about how Sam, and Cara, and Eliza, and Wyatt might never have been born if things had turned out differently? Yes, all the time. She tried not to, but she did. And it wasn’t just them, of course. Nellie, Gracie… Would they have ever left New York if he’d stayed? He might have stayed… and they would never have had all these wonderful things, they might have been so miserable, all of them. So, really, hadn’t he done them all a favor by leaving? Oh, that was a strange thought, and she really didn’t want to be having it…

The closer the bus got to New York, she would tell herself not to let her mind get wrapped up in Kermit, in the way he’d make her feel, thinking about how he’d abandoned them, what it had done to her mother, to her… But then she wouldn’t even be here either if not for him, would she? Did that mean she owed him anything? No… not one thing. And her wanting to get to know her brothers and sisters, it was as separate from him as the rest.

She thought about being back in New York for that week, about getting to spend it at Farkle’s home, and then with her siblings… It had been the easiest choice for her to make. For as much as she’d thought she could never care for her father’s other children, she did, she really did. They were a part of her she had been denied until that chance encounter with Sam, and now she wanted to make up for lost time.

She would miss her parents, her sisters. They had offered to just come along with her; there would definitely have been space for them at the Minkus house. But she needed to do this for herself, so it would be just her. She had been promised that if either of the twins did anything while she was away, there would be pictures and videos enough to make her phone burst open under pressure. Her mother and father had held her in a good squeeze hug before putting her on that bus back in Philly.

“See you in a week,” her father had tipped his head before she’d climbed on and moved to find a seat. They’d been right there, getting smaller and smaller as the bus drove off. They were all getting to be in such a good place, finally. It hadn’t seemed fair to leave them behind, but then she’d promised, and she did want to go. She could only feel lucky, to have so many people to love, people to miss.

She had plenty of those, in New York, Philadelphia, Austin… in Austin… Even with those weeks and weeks to go, not yet spent, all she could think about was how she had never been away from her friends down there, ever since they’d come into her life. That they were even in her life had been unexpected, but here they were, and they were some of the best people she’d ever known, people you _should_ miss being near. The ones who’d been there from the start, Nadine, and Zay, and Asher and Dylan, and… and Lucas. And others who’d joined them along the way, like Joey, and Rebecca, and Ray, and Scott, and Sophie… Some of them she was still getting to know, and already they were just indispensable to her.

All their lives would be changing soon, maybe cast off in all directions, following dreams and futures. This summer had been supposed to be the last hurrah, the last one before the change, and now it wasn’t. Things would already be different in the fall. Ray would have left for college by the time she got back, and she wouldn’t have gotten to say goodbye to him, not in person.

After a while she got out her sketchbook to start drawing, to pull her focus out of her own head for a while, but the bus kept hitting bumps and rumbling, and there was just no way. The sketchbook went back into her bag and out came her book for school, the second one she had to read. She read all of two pages in about half an hour, so the book went back, too. She got her phone this time and texted Lucas.

_Losing my mind on a bus, give me those secret boyfriend magic moves._

Five minutes later, she got a message back, with a video attached. Fishing out her headphones and connecting them, she hit play, finding Lucas in his yellow camp shirt glory, holding his phone out in front of him and a double line of kids at his back, Sophie Zvolensky at the other end. Standing next to Lucas was her short statured superfan, Scottie.

“Alright, guys, ready to get loud?” Lucas called, and the kids cheered loud enough to make her wonder if the old guy in the seat next to her would wake up from his nap. “Three, two, one!” Lucas counted down, and then they started to sing. They sang the marching song she’d written for them, sang it with so much gusto and cheer, she sat there on that bus, crying from joy.

When the song came to an end, with a rousing cheer from the kids and their counselors, the phone tilted up so it was just him on the screen now, and he gave her a wink and a quiet declaration of ‘magic moves’ and ‘I love you,’ and the image froze on his smile.

The old guy _had_ woken up, she saw, when he held out a pack of tissues after spotting the tears on her face. She took one with thanks, explaining that she wasn’t crying from being sad. They talked until they came to his stop and he got off. Once he was gone, she wrote back to Lucas.

_Now that was some magic… and because it doesn’t matter how many times we’ve said it: I love you, I love you, I love you… Call you when I get to Farkle’s._

She watched the video again twice over the rest of the ride. She couldn’t get over all of it, all those happy faces, singing her song. And Lucas, who had organized all this at a moment’s notice… The rest of the bus ride flew by after that, her head clear and happy. She was going to see her brothers and sisters…

Arriving at the bus stop, she’d expected to find only Farkle, and she spotted him right quick, holding up a sign with her name on it. Then she spotted the others, one by one by one… Sam, and the girls, and little Wyatt in his mother’s arms. Her heart flipped, and she made sure her bag was closed and she had all her things, so she could get off the bus as soon as possible. She got down, retrieved her suitcase, and she took off at a hurried step toward her welcoming committee.

As soon as she got within a few feet of them, little Eliza shot off like a rocket toward her, and Maya set down her things, crouching and receiving the five-year-old in her arms.

“You’re real, you’re real!” she squealed, and Maya laughed, hugging her.

“Yeah, I am, but don’t tell anyone,” she held a finger to her lips, and Eliza giggled. Standing up, she barely had time to set her down before the next hug came, this one from Cara, her eight-year-old clone. “Hi,” Maya started to feel the good tears again, feeling the happiness in those arms. And then there was the one who’d started it all… ten-year-old Sam. He stood there, much more reserved than his sisters, but when Maya opened her arms to him, he happily came in for a hug, too.

Their mother, Abigail, came up now, presenting the one-year-old, Wyatt, asleep in her arms. Maya looked to him with a smile. Her baby brother, just barely older than the twins.

“It’s really good to meet you, Maya,” Abigail could only hold out her hand, with her young son against her, and Maya shook it, assuring her the feeling was truly mutual. Then, bringing up the rear, there was Farkle.

“No introductions here,” Maya grinned, giving him a good, solid hug. “Thanks for this,” she smiled.

“Anytime,” Farkle assured her.

TO BE CONTINUED


	232. Her Attempt to Share

Set up in one of the guest rooms at the Minkus home, she felt as though she had been bumped up to some high end hotel suite by mistake and any second now someone would come to kick her out, which was… well, ridiculous, but here they were.

She’d left Abigail and the kids to come here and drop off her things, promising to get back to them in an hour or so. Little Eliza had been particularly upset to see her go, now that she was totally real and not just some face on a screen, but Maya had acted fast, pulling her necklace off and reattaching it around the little one’s neck, asking that she guard it until she came back. At once, the girl had grasped on to the pendant with a face that vowed to guard it with all the fury of her five-year-old self.

“I’m really glad you’re real, too,” she’d told her, giving a smile at once returned, matched with the same secretive finger to the lips.

She hadn’t expected to meet them all until a little later, so to have had it all happen at once upon her arrival had left her with trepidations as she and Farkle had taken off for his home. Now that it was just him and her, old friends together again, she breathed out and smiled at him.

“Smackle told me to tell you ‘red seven,’ whatever that means.” Farkle blinked, frowned, and then looked aside, like he’d just lost something. “You alright there, bud?” she asked, as though speaking to a bummed out toddler.

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” he insisted, though his eyes were now doing that quick sort of moving thing like he was trying to think of something that wasn’t coming to him. Then, remembering Maya was sitting right there, he forced himself to put that aside and focus on her instead. “How was your bus ride?”

“Long, a little… emotionally rattling for a while. What is it with travel and weird thoughts?”

“Too much free time?” he shrugged.

“Yeah, probably that.”

“Although, I did read this study once…” he started, and she held up her hand.

“No, no studies, please, no studies,” she begged. He sighed, storing away his anecdote and instead getting to the point.

“There’s a lot happening in your life right now, the trip… probably forced a lot of it in the spotlight at the same time.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

When they’d arrived and he’d shown her to her room, she’d needed a moment to remind herself she’d been here before, that she knew what his home was like, but it was still sort of startling sometimes. She put away her things, what little of those she’d brought along. Of course, the objects from the shelf over her top bunk had been brought with her, now spread out over either one of the nightstands flanking her bed. She did bring her sketchbook with her for later. She was going to show it to Sam, her fellow budding artist, maybe draw here and there throughout the day…

As she rejoined Farkle, he asked to see the sketchbook, and she handed it over. He looked through the pages with attention and care, asking questions from time to time. At one time, the drawing she’d done at Mr. Matthews’ store came loose, previously stuck between two pages. Farkle picked it up after it fluttered to the ground. He was still thinking about his offer to fly Lucas up to be with her while she was in New York, she could see it in his eyes.

Of all their friends, he might have been the one most equally attached to the both of them. Lucas was like the brother he’d never had, and her… well they went so far back, didn’t they? She knew he and Lucas talked a lot, and she could only imagine how much they’d had to talk about since last October. Part of her would have found it so easy to ask him about some of those conversations, wanting to know what Lucas had said, but that part was very small, and she would never actually ask. Even if she did, Farkle was too good of a friend to ever say it even if she did ask.

“You’re going to see him again before I do, when you go down to Texas at the end of the summer. Would you take it to him?” she asked, indicating the folded drawing. She could have mailed it, but she felt it would have been better to have it handed down personally, from her, to Farkle, and to him.

“Sure,” Farkle agreed at once. “Hey, you guys are doing another show a couple days after you get back to Philadelphia, right?” They were, and she nodded to confirm it. “I don’t know if I’ll pull it off, but if I can, I’ll go down there on that night.”

“Oh, don’t tell anyone, okay? It’ll be a surprise,” Maya sat up excitedly, and he smiled. She could just picture both Smackle and Riley’s faces if he just showed up out of nowhere.

“I guess it’s probably a good idea anyway, in case I don’t get to go, then it won’t get their hopes up for nothing.”

“The internship’s keeping you pretty busy, huh?”

“Yeah… I kind of have to go back soon actually,” he admitted.

“That’s alright, we’ll talk more tonight. I’m here all week,” she pointed out with a smirk. So off he went, back to his internship, and after freshening up a bit, Maya grabbed her bag, sketchbook and all, and took off back into the city to go and join her brothers and sisters at the park.

On the way, she called Lucas, giving him the update on her arrival, meeting everyone, going to Farkle’s and then heading out to meet everyone again. After that, the conversation was a lot of raving and gushing over the video he’d sent her and how much it had lifted up her spirits, and much as it all also made her wish he could be here with her even more, she kept it together. Missing him was going to be a part of this whole summer, but right in this moment he was with her, no matter the miles, and she was happy.

TO BE CONTINUED


	233. Her Attempt to Start

Maya saw them all before they ever saw her as she walked toward them across the park. She looked at them, how it could have been a portrait, and really the image just stayed with her. Abigail, the mother, sat on the grass with her younger son sitting up against her, awake now. Sitting next to her but in his own world, there was Sam, hunched over a pad of paper, a pencil in hand. And then there were the girls, little Eliza running madly around her mother and brothers, arms out before herself as she scrambled on, her older sister Cara chasing after her but ‘somehow’ never quite catching up with her. She could hear the little one’s laughter, clear as a bell.

They were a family, apart from her, and of course… of course there was another member to that family. Kermit, _her_ father… birth father… He knew she was here, of course. He’d offered to host her through the week, in their house. He’d offered to come and collect her from Philadelphia. And she’d said no to both. The thing was… maybe the offers were made in earnest, and maybe she wouldn’t be disappointed… this time… But then she’d thought the same thing before, more than once… and she hadn’t forgotten where that had gotten her.

So, it was going to be her, and the kids, and Abigail… all week. And all she could find herself wondering was just… where was he? What was he doing? What would he do all week while they were all spending time together, without him? What did he think about her refusal to see him at all?

No, she wasn’t going to keep doing this to herself, except… well, she was, wasn’t she? That was the problem. No matter how hard she tried not to let him get to her, he didn’t need to be there for him to get to her. The thoughts would always be there, waiting to pop out and grab her when she least suspected.

She pushed him out of her head, forced him out, for now at least. She walked over to rejoin her siblings and let them fill her head and heart instead. It didn’t take long at all. Eliza spotted her and immediately veered on the spot and ran up to her just as she’d done at the bus depot. She came to a stop with a big hop, landing before Maya and showing she still had her necklace safe.

“Thanks,” Maya laughed. “Now you keep on hanging to that for me, yeah?”

“Until when?” Eliza asked.

“Until forever,” Maya declared. Lucas had given it to her, though she had it on good authority he would more than understand the gesture and encourage it. And, oh, if he had seen the look on the little one’s face when she understood she could keep the necklace…

“Thanks…” Eliza whispered with much reverence, and Maya whispered back in like.

“You are very welcome. Now come on,” she scooped her up in her arms, getting good and hugged for it, and she walked to rejoin the others. “You didn’t wait too long, did you?”

“Not at all,” Abigail assured her, that serene glow about her as always. “Are you hungry?” Maya nodded. “Alright then, let’s go.”

They ended up at a restaurant near the park. The whole time walking from one place to the other, and even as they sat around the table, there was this strange sort of hesitation between Maya and Sam and Cara, the three of them who’d communicated the most since February, and Maya understood where it came from well enough. They’d all only ever spoken through screens, except for that one brief encounter at Sam’s school, and now, to be together in the real world after all that… it was just kind of surreal. They would all get over it in time, she trusted, but until then the elder two of her siblings looked like they couldn’t speak, could only stare.

That was more than alright, of course. Eliza could talk enough for all of them, and oh how she did. And then there was Wyatt. He was still so small, he couldn’t have understood what was happening on that day, or who Maya was except ‘that girl my brother and sisters show me on the big screen all the time.’ But then as she held him in her arms for the first time and he stared at her, and stared, and stared, there came a moment, she swore, he recognized her. He had smiled good and wide then, and Maya had smiled back. It made her miss the twins so much, and in her mind, she could see the three of them growing up and being friends… Stranger things had happened…

The other thing she would think about, holding the small boy in her arms, was that he would never remember not knowing her, not if they kept in touch. Eliza, too, may forget in time that she hadn’t always been there with the rest of them. Maya would count herself lucky if that ever became the case. How long she’d wished for things she didn’t have, back when she’d been the girl whose father had run out on her, who only had her mother.

The big, happy family, that had been so out of her grasp. But now… now she had four sisters, two brothers, a mother, a father… Sure, they didn’t all live together, but for having maintained long distance friendships over these past five years, she knew… that was only an obstacle if she let it be an obstacle.

“What do you guys want to do now?” Maya asked after they finished eating. She was just relishing in her big sister role with everything she had. To see their eager faces, and to hear their multiple suggestions… it was wonderful. “Okay, we’re going to pick one for today…” The suggestions piled on again, and she laughed.

TO BE CONTINUED


	234. Her Attempt to Grow

It would be just Sam and Cara joining her on the next day, as Abigail needed to take Eliza in for a dentist’s appointment. According to her brother and sister, Eliza had _not_ been a happy camper when she’d found out.

“Doesn’t like the dentist, huh?” Maya guessed, hearing about all this after the pair’s mother had dropped them off outside the park again.

“Oh, no, she does. He’s very nice. She just wanted to come and spend the day with the rest of us,” Cara explained. Maya smile sympathetically. “Where are we going now?” Cara asked, and Maya had a feeling this day of just the three of them would help, giving them a chance to break past the oddity of being together in real life.

“I don’t know, where do you guys want to go?”

“Can we go to the arcade, at the mall?” Sam asked.

“Sure!” And they were off, Maya and her brother and sister.

Making their way toward the mall, there had been some discussion of what the rest of the week might entail. For one thing, Cara had a soccer game on the day after next, and she wanted to know if Maya would like to be there.

“Yeah, of course I will,” she gladly nodded. “Now I’m just going to need a big sign with 41 on it,” she mimed waving the sign around, and Cara grinned at once.

It was really startling sometimes how much she looked like her. She had some of Abigail in her, too, and if they actually stopped to compare the two it would be plain to see, but always, on the whole, she was just a smaller version of Maya. Of all her siblings, she was the only one who looked this similar, and between that and being her one and only big sister, in those short months they had known each other, Cara had gotten very much attached to her. Now that she was here for real… They’d been walking hand in hand since leaving the park.

By the time they got to the arcade, they practically had a set list of what games they wanted to hit and in what order. That part had been forced to change a bit whenever one game or the other was occupied, but it wasn’t a problem, not with plenty other games to go try, especially ones they hadn’t known would be there.

Maya couldn’t say whether the two siblings were usually so cooperative with one another or if her presence there was making them just want to stick together, but it did make things easier. Whenever one or the other didn’t want to play a game the other one wanted to play, they’d stand and watch, alone or with their big sister, depending on if she would play, too.

At one game where only Sam wanted to play, and where there never seemed to be a vacancy whenever they came back around to check, they finally stood in wait so that, when the game finally freed up, he would be able to get his turn. When a couple older kids tried to cut ahead of him, Maya stepped in, and with only a look she sent them to wait their turn.

“How’d you do that?” Cara asked, trying to imitate her and comically failing while Sam was off playing his turn at the game.

“Long story, wouldn’t recommend,” was all Maya could say, not wanting to get into the whole ‘our dad abandoned me and it messed me up’ tale. Even if Cara was old enough to understand part of the story all on her own, Maya wasn’t sure just how much she knew of the actual details, and she didn’t feel like now would be the best time to get into it.

They sat near to where they could see Sam give some fake zombies the thrashing of their undeath with an unsuspected intensity that reminded Maya of Riley, when she’d play video games. Maya quickly pulled out her sketchbook and started to draw up ‘the unleashed beast within young Samuel,’ making Cara giggle as she watched the image come together.

“Can you do one of me when I’m playing soccer?”

“Action pose and everything. You got a good kick?” Maya asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Cara announced with a confidently raised chin.

They went on to talk about TXNY’s show up in Philadelphia. Cara still sounded bummed that she hadn’t been able to attend on the night where the band had played at Sam’s school, and she guessed they wouldn’t let kids in at the other places where they would play.

“Well, look, we’re going to be over there all summer. Maybe we’ll find someplace to play where you’ll get to go, too,” Maya told her, and that got her little sister smiling.

Their time at the arcade ended with a heated pass at the dancing game. Maya found both her siblings excelled at this, and she also discovered that all three of them had something of a competitive drive, which, as family traits went, she could sort of get behind.

After that, they wandered through the mall for a while, until Sam and Cara’s mother came to pick them up, with Eliza and Wyatt in tow. The tiny blonde was thrilled to see her new sister, as always, and she wasted no time telling her all about going to the dentist. Abigail drove Maya back to Farkle’s building, and there she had a thought. Farkle _had_ told her she was welcome to invite her siblings up there while he was off at his internship. So, she told Abigail about it and she agreed to drop the kids off back here the next morning.

Just like that, her second day with her siblings was over, and she really didn’t know how it was all going by so fast. She was starting to become aware that in a few days they would have to go their separate ways, and that it would actually pain her to be away from them, even if they still got to chat and write one another.

TO BE CONTINUED


	235. Her Attempt to Know

Farkle had told her about a bunch of things even she hadn’t seen or tried in his room before, in anticipation of her day here with her brothers and sisters, or however many of them she got to spend time with today.

It was all four of them. If they’d been going out into the city Abigail would have either accompanied them or only left Sam and Cara and maybe Eliza, but as Maya assured they would stay at Farkle’s all day, she had been put in charge of all four of the siblings.

Seeing the looks on the older three as they walked through the doors, Maya chuckled. It was like they’d stepped into Santa’s workshop or something like it. She remembered how it had felt, the first time she’d seen it, too.

Most of the morning had involved Maya trying to keep an eye on all four kids. The orderliness of the previous day had just gone by the wayside in this place. At least she could count on Wyatt being right there in her arms, and if he wasn’t then he was in his playpen, dropped off along with him by Abigail. Eliza would either trail behind one or another of her siblings, and whenever that one sibling was Maya herself she would do her best to keep her near, but then the little one would wander off again. And when she _wasn’t_ trailing one of the others, she would stand or sit somewhere, enthralled by a new thing.

Sam and Cara, now, they’d find something, try it for a while, then go find another thing, and sometimes they’d ask Maya to stick around and watch, which would then lead her to lose sight of one or two of the others. It was madness, chaotic madness, but she was dialled in for all of it.

Lunch managed to reunite the five of them, and Maya set up the perfect way to keep it that way by putting on a movie on the large screen. Sitting there (mostly) in peace, that had been nice in a whole other way compared to the chaos of the morning. Wyatt fell asleep, eventually Eliza did the same, curled up in Maya’s lap. Cara would lean to her big sister’s arm, too, and with three of the four in contact with her, it had been easy to notice how Sam kept his distance all of a sudden.

Sure, he was watching the movie, but sometimes it seemed to her as though his head was somewhere else, like he wanted to say something but then changed his mind every time. After the first movie ended, they tried to decide on a second one, and she definitely saw it. This would have been an ideal moment, no? At one point he even caught her eye, just barely. But then he turned back to the shelves full of movies and started to peruse them once again.

As the second movie was drawing to a close, Abigail returned to pick up the four kids and she sat there with them until the credits had rolled. After a strong helping of goodbyes, and hugs, and reminders for the next morning’s soccer game, they all went on their way, and Maya missed her shot to talk to Sam. There’d be the next day, for sure, but now that she knew there was _something_ she couldn’t let go of it.

Alright, so technically she already knew about the something, or part of it. The ‘something’ had been there from the start with them, this thing that Sam felt he wanted to talk about with her but never got up the courage to start. And Maya, she knew it would probably have to do with how their father had walked out on her and her mom, which had even allowed him and his siblings to be born. But if he wasn’t ready to talk about it, she wasn’t going to push him. Without a doubt, her actually being there in the same room as him had to be putting some pressure on him to actually say the words, and she wished she knew how to tell him that there didn’t have to be any pressure without needing to point out that she knew…

With no way out for the time being, she set about to create the sign she had promised Cara for her soccer game the next day. She didn’t have all her supplies with her, but then Farkle’s room was an apparently inexhaustible resource trove, and by the time he returned home that day, he found her putting the finishing, sparkling touches to the ‘GO 41 GO! GO CARA GO!’ sign, complete with an outline of a girl giving one mighty kick to a soccer ball.

“Woah…” Farkle declared, getting a look at the sign.

“Bit of an upgrade from the signs I made for the basketball team a few years back,” she declared with pride. Now she was thinking about making new ones for that, too. After all this time without a team, they _had_ to come back in style, didn’t they? And there wouldn’t be that many of them returning this time around, so new players would mean new signs…

“How did it go today?” he asked, looking at some of the supplies like he’d completely forgotten he had any of them.

“Fine,” Maya told him. “Kind of hectic in the morning, but things calmed down in the afternoon.” She didn’t bring up the whole Sam thing with him. She could have, but she didn’t feel like unpacking that whole subject, not now, not like this… “Tomorrow, a lot of cheering, a lot of this,” she brandished the sign, high over her head, and gave it a wave, cheering at the non-existent soccer game in the middle of his room. _Going to my sister’s game…_ Just thinking it made her happy.

TO BE CONTINUED


	236. Her Attempt to Expand

It wasn’t until she was on her way to the game that Maya had a realization, and when it came, she almost turned heel. Cara’s soccer game… Would their father be there? She couldn’t know for sure if he was the dad who never missed a game, the one who missed a few for any number of reasons, or the one who never showed. And she couldn’t well ask without sounding like she was trying to back out. But if she was out there and he was there, too…

It wasn’t even about her. Well… a part of it was probably about her, and how could it not. To be perfectly honest though, she was thinking a lot more about her little sister. What if they got into an argument, or… something… It would be so bad for Cara…

She couldn’t not go, she knew that. So, she didn’t turn heel. She kept going, reaching the park as the families and players were still arriving and going where they needed to be. There’d be practice first, for a bit, leaving the families to stand or sit in wait. Maya started scanning the field until she spotted Cara among her teammates. When she spotted her big sister, she was shown the sign, held up by Maya for her to see, and the excitement was palpable.

Looking again, this time for the rest of the family, she finally spotted Sam, holding on to Eliza’s hand so she wouldn’t run off. She also spotted Abigail and, so far, no sign of baby Wyatt, or his father. This could still go one of two ways. Approaching Sam and Eliza, the small girl finally showed her brother only really maintained her grip because she let him. She broke away from him like it was nothing, running to meet her big sister.

Some of the other parents were watching her as she went by, and she knew they were bound to be curious about some unknown teenaged girl showing up, especially one who looked so much like Cara. Maya paid them no mind. The story was bound to make the rounds before long.

“Dad’s at home with Wyatt,” Sam told her before she ever had to ask, leaving her to wonder whether he said it to save her from asking.

“Alright,” Maya nodded. “So where should we go for like… prime viewing?” she asked him, and he led her to their usual spot, where they would soon be joined by Abigail, who complimented the sign.

Throughout the game, said sign would be waved around by Maya, by Sam, by Abigail, even by Eliza for a few perilous seconds. Even as she watched, Maya set about drawing Cara in action, just as she’d promised her. It was hard to both draw and watch, but Maya kept it up, all the way through the game and up to the barely clinched victory by Cara’s team.

“Did you see? Did you see? The kick? And I made goals! I never made goals before, not one, and I did two now!” Cara’s excited ramblings made her appear like the happy medium between Maya and Eliza.

“Did I see it? You tell me,” Maya showed her the – still in progress – sketch, and Cara gasped in awe. They ended up sitting back down so that the drawing could be completed.

As she drew and Cara watched, they went on talking. Maya had already told her that she played basketball, although she hadn’t really told her about the whole cancelled team situation. But now that Maya had attended one of her soccer games, Cara seemed to feel like she should go to one of her basketball games in return.

“Well, if you’re ever in Austin after the season starts, then I’ll be happy to have you up there in the stands,” Maya told her. Cara swore that she would be there. After this, she went on to ask about the band. She was a big fan after all. She asked how they had started it and if it had been hard. “Not really, I mean… we got lucky, I guess. A few of us already sang, and we started learning instruments. Then Smackle, she started writing songs, we started singing them, did some videos, and then one thing led to another…”

And if not for the band she might not have come into contact with the four of them, she realized. Actually, if not for basketball getting cancelled, her joining the Basket Cases, and them going to compete in New York, and the band deciding to do a show there… then she might not have met them. What were the odds?

“Why do you ask? Do you want to start a band, too?” Maya asked her little sister with a smile. There was a blush in the little blonde.

“I don’t know, I just like…” she shrugged, and Maya gave her a look, catching on.

“Singing?” she asked. Cara had ‘deer caught in the headlights’ all over her. “If you guys come over to Farkle’s again tomorrow, will you let me hear?” Cara considered this for a long time before finally giving a subdued nod.

Maya soon completed the drawing of the mighty Cara and her great kick, and handing it over, the girl looked as though she’d found her superhero alter ego. Maya watched her dash off to go and show her mother. Through all this, she still hadn’t had the chance to talk to Sam. Maybe tomorrow, she told herself. Secrets and singing… Her week was running out, already over the midway point, and it didn’t seem possible but now here they were.

She went back to Farkle’s that afternoon with an inescapable eagerness for the next day and at the same time a bit of sadness for leaving in three days’ time. She just guessed she had to resolve herself to the fact that her world was and would always be fractured and spread out. But it was still her world, and she could deal with the pieces.

TO BE CONTINUED


	237. Her Attempt to Wonder

Every day involved a number of calls and conversations. Those with her friends back in Austin were on something of a rotation. Then there’d be her parents, and Riley and Smackle, back in Philadelphia and waiting for her return. And Lucas, of course, always kept last because it would inevitably be the longest one. At the end of that fifth day, she got to tell him about the day she’d had, the second one spent at Farkle’s place with her brothers and sisters.

A lot of it had been like the last time, chaos here, peace there… Mixed in between there had been some singing, too. She’d brought her guitar, couldn’t not. For one, ever since the accident and her arm, she’d had this fear like if she didn’t keep practicing then she would get rusty again.

That day, it came in handy, getting Cara to come out of her shell and give her a listen to her singing. They ended up going through a few TXNY songs together, the only way she would even sing at first, but then she would get caught up in the songs so much that she wouldn’t notice every so often when Maya would stop singing and she’d be the only voice in the room.

While they were very similar in appearance, their voice were as different as any two, in all except one thing: they both sounded great.

When Cara finally realized she’d been tricked, she looked to Maya with surprise, but then finding her big sister smiling at her the way she did, the girl could only beam and laugh. Maya looked at this development like the promise of many a thing in the future for the two of them.

But then there was Sam, too, and ‘the Sam thing.’ On a couple previous calls which she made that evening, she came this close to talking with whoever she had on the line that time and asking them for advice, and each time she decided against it. Lucas was the end of the line now, and with the plans for tomorrow, it seemed like that would be the day if there ever was one.

“Confidence time?” she asked him, holding two crossed fingers in front of the screen. He smiled and did the same. “How do I get a ten-year-old boy to talk about something he doesn’t know how to talk about?”

Today, when they were all there, after the singing with Cara bits, she sort of set off on a mission of showing herself sort of… open to talk. She wanted so much for Sam to understand that she was ready to talk to him whenever he wanted to go through with it, but so far, he hadn’t taken the bite. The thing with that, she realized in time, was maybe that his knowing now that she was aware of his problem only made it harder for him to open up.

“I just felt for him, you know? I can tell it’s really eating at him, but… he’s just a kid, and it’s not the kind of thing he should be thinking about… I know how that feels. The difference is he’s scared of something that hasn’t happened, and I was scared because of something that did happen.”

“Your dad leaving,” Lucas gave a solemn nod, understanding what she was getting at.

“What am I supposed to say to him if he even gets around to talk? ‘Don’t worry, Sammy, if he was going to run, he would probably have done it by now’?”

“Probably not that, no,” he replied, knowing clearly that she’d been joking. “Don’t sell yourself short, Maya. When the time comes… you’ll know what to say. You usually do.” She smiled; she couldn’t have kept from it if she tried. She just stared at him through that screen, sitting up on his bed by the looks of it, still in his camp yellows, and a few other colors for some reason.

“Is that paint in your hair?” she frowned, curious. His hand moved to his head as he ran his fingers through his hair and inspected them as though it would still be wet.

“Probably. A bit of an incident in the arts and crafts corner,” he explained, reaching down and pulling out another camp shirt which showed a number of other splashes of colors.

“Oh no,” she laughed.

“Maybe I should leave it in, make it a look,” he shrugged, giving her a few poses and keeping her laughing a while. “Sorry, sorry, back to your brother,” he came back to topic.

“Yes, please. So, tomorrow I’m going to the house,” she revealed to him, and he blinked, about as surprised as she still was about it. “My… their… Kermit won’t be there, and they all really wanted to show me their rooms, so… I said yes when they invited me. Part of me wonders if they asked him to go spend the day somewhere else just so I’d go. Hopefully, Sam will get comfortable enough if we’re in his own home, and he’ll say something.”

“Maybe,” Lucas agreed. “But… are you going to be okay, being over there?”

“I… I don’t know,” she admitted with a sigh. She could say that she didn’t know what it was about having to be in that house that made her uneasy, but then of course she knew, of course she did. It was their home, his home, the home he’d made with them, after he’d left her mother and her. It wouldn’t just be a house; it would be a symbol of… everything. How could she not be nervous? She hadn’t even told anyone else that she was going there, because she was sure that, if she kept talking about it, she would somehow change her mind and not want to go. But she’d promised her brother and sisters…

“You’ll get through it,” he told her, and she appreciated that he didn’t tell her that she would be fine, because she probably wouldn’t. But it would be a moment, and it would pass. And if she focused on her brothers and sisters, it wouldn’t be all bad.

“I really miss you right now…” she couldn’t help but say, looking into that screen.

“I’m right here,” he replied, three words that said plenty, said that he missed her, too, that though the physical distance was very real and the source of all pain, this nearness kept them going and would continue to keep them going, until the summer’s end.

TO BE CONTINUED


	238. Her Attempt to Ease Up

Waking up the next morning knowing that she was not only headed to her birth father’s house today, but that she was also headed back to Philadelphia the next day, it really felt a wonder that she had managed to sleep through the night.

Abigail had offered to come and get her, but she’d insisted she would make the journey on her own. Maybe she just didn’t want to spend a whole car ride sitting next to the woman and looking like she was being driven to her doom, or she just wanted the chance to be left to her own thoughts for a little while longer before heading into that place.

It was a long walk from the bus to get to the house, and as she walked down the street, seeing the other houses, she didn’t know what she was expecting, didn’t know if this made it better or worse. The houses here were not massive, but they weren’t small either. So, they lived comfortably enough, not quite in the city… It looked like… like… _somewhere to grow a family…_ And there was the house… their house… his house… She must have stood there a while, because in the end they had seen her from the window and Abigail had opened the door, letting Eliza dash out to meet her.

“Mayayaya!” she heard, breaking her out of her head in time to look down and catch the running blonde. That was what she’d been calling her, for a while now, and it never failed to make her smile.

“Hey, kiddo,” she gave as good a squeeze as she got. She was really going to miss those hugs…

“You come see my room, okay?” Eliza tugged at Maya’s backpack strap like that would get her to start walking toward the house.

“Can’t wait to see it,” Maya promised, walking toward the house. Maybe she could be a little braver so long as she had this one nearby. “It’s going to be purple, isn’t it?”

“Yeah!”

“I know another girl who likes purple… purple cats, definitely,” Maya told her little sister before they came to join Abigail at the open door. The way the woman was looking at her, she had to know this was hard for Maya, and she met her with sympathy. “Thanks for having me,” Maya greeted her, and Abigail gave her a side embrace, minding her young daughter still in their guest’s arms.

“We’re happy to have you. They’ve been cleaning their rooms since yesterday afternoon, so I’m _thrilled_.” The joke helped to loosen things up, if only for a moment, and Maya walked in.

The house looked so… normal… cozy… it almost felt like too much already. It wasn’t like she expected it to be a mess, to basically be a representation of what she felt when she’d think about her father, but still…

Finding it in everyone’s best interests to go up and see Eliza’s room, as the girl really wanted her to so much, that was where she went first. It turned out to be that Eliza’s room was also little Wyatt’s, and Maya found her littlest brother sitting up in his crib, holding on to his favorite toy, a fluffy little dog he had with him every time she’d seen him. He brightened when he saw them, and Maya found again that her heart had let the four of them into it so easily, and now leaving them felt terrible.

After diligently taking part in Eliza’s tour of the room, she was guided down the hall to find a pair of closed doors, each marked with her oldest brother and sister’s names. Maya thought back to Abigail’s comment about the cleaning, and she could just imagine them in there, cleaning away like they were running out of time. With a smirk, she knocked at Cara’s door.

This room’s color scheme seemed to veer on green, and yellow. It gave her the impression of nature. Of course, there was no denying this was Cara’s room, between the soccer things, and the presence of TXNY items around the space. Even knowing that her little sister had been a mega-fan of the band before even beyond the fact that she was related to the singer, it was sort of strange to see it all here… strange and thrilling.

She spent time with the girls until Sam came around, ready to show her his room next, and then she followed him. Unlike Eliza and Wyatt’s purple room and Cara’s nature room, Sam’s was just full of as many colors as possible. She’d seen parts of it on the computer screen of course, but it would never hold up to the whole image. There were the drawings on the wall, his drawings and now some of hers, too. She shared the music with Cara, but with Sam she had the art.

He showed her around, but his enthusiasm seemed a bit downplayed compared to the girls, and Maya could just see him, working up the courage to talk. She wasn’t going to force it out of him. She sent all the good vibes that she could, but she said nothing. After a while, she thought that maybe he wouldn’t pull it together, that the girls would come looking for them, wanting to play, and he’d let his chance go by. But then he turned to look at her, and it was right there and… Oh, he was right there.

She didn’t say anything, but then she hugged him, and she knew it was the right move, because after that he just let go. When she looked back at him, there were tears in his eyes and he reached up to wipe them from under his glasses.

“Hey…” she gave him a small smile. “You’re okay,” she promised him, encouraging him. Once he stopped crying a bit, Maya went to shut the door and the two of them went to sit on the ground together. Sam looked at her, no going back anymore but still unsure how to start, to even explain what was going through his mind.

“Before… when I didn’t know, about you, about him from before… He was just my dad, and I… I never thought anything except that. He’s here, and sometimes he’s great, he really is.”

“I know,” she promised him.

“But sometimes he doesn’t show up, sometimes he misses things. He says he’s sorry, tries to make up for it, and it goes away. Cara, she doesn’t know about all of it, not the way I do. She thinks your mom and him just got divorced.” This surprised Maya. She’d sort of assumed that Cara knew the whole story, too. “I only know the real thing because I heard him and my mom talking once, and since then… it’s like he’s someone else. Someone who just left. What if…”

_If he was going to do it, he would have done it by now_ , she thought to herself, but then was that even true? Who knew what could make someone leave their family behind, or how long it would really take before he got to that point again? He still could… She imagined what it would be like, going through her days with the notion that he could leave again.

“Sam…”

“Now when I think about everything, I see all these times where he did things I should have been angry about, but I let them go and I let him brush it away with ice cream and new toys. And now I don’t know how to feel about him anymore, or if I even…”

“I still love him, you know?” Maya cut in then, and Sam looked confused. “Deep, deep… so deep down, I know… He couldn’t affect me the way he does if there wasn’t still a part of me somewhere that still can’t let go. No matter what I do, he’s never going to be completely out of there, because… because he’s my father, or he was… and that doesn’t go away, as much as I have wanted it to, it doesn’t. And it hurts like hell…”

She was surprising even herself. She’d never been able to express this, to anyone, and maybe for the fact that Sam was in this singularly similar position as she was, it made it easier for her to say the words. And Sam, he heard her, and he understood what she meant.

“What if he leaves? It’s going to hurt them. Cara, Eliza, Wyatt, my mom… me…”

“You’ll have each other. You’ll have me.” She sighed. “I want to tell you I don’t think he would, but then what do I know, right?” It was blunt, honest, but she looked at Sam’s face and it seemed like just the thing he’d needed to hear. He hugged her again, and she held him, her kid brother… “You can always talk to me, always, you know that, right? About anything. The good, the bad, the awkward… I’ll take it all.”

“Can we go to the park?” he asked, and she breathed out.

“Oh, please.”

So, they left the house, went to the park, just as they’d done on the first day. The next day, they went to breakfast, her brothers and sisters, their mother, Farkle and her. They went and saw a movie, played around at the arcade some more. And then it was time for Maya to get on the bus back to Philadelphia. Many hugs and promises of calls later, she got on, found a seat, waved goodbye. They got smaller, and smaller, and then she couldn’t see them anymore. It had been such a good week.

TO BE CONTINUED


	239. His Fight For Truth

How they’d made it through half the summer already, he didn’t know, but here they were. Halfway gone… halfway back… He held on to that, more than he could say. He counted down the days.

He didn’t know if it was different for her, being somewhere else, but for him, to be here in the city where they both lived, without her, it was like he saw her in everything, in every place, only she wasn’t there, and when he’d remember…

Lucas wasn’t moping his way through the summer, he really wasn’t, and he knew Maya wasn’t either. They both missed one another, and they would continue to, but then they had good things to hold on to also. She had her family, friends, the band… From everything he’d seen and heard, TXNY was taking Philly by storm. And he had the camp, of course. Being with those kids, it had made everything feel more alive, and he didn’t know that he would have made it to this point in this state without them. He was very glad for having both Rebecca and Sophie there working with him, too.

“Hey, Sophie,” he raised his hand in greeting when he saw her arrive that day, but then just as soon he paused, noticing how she looked like she’d been crying. “Hey, woah, what happened?” She looked at him now like she was only just realizing he was there, and when she did, she started to cry again, covering her mouth to stifle the sound. “Sophie?” he moved up to her, unsure if he should hug her, or rub her back, something to get her to breathe.

“Lucas… I’m so sorry, it’s all… I should have known… I should have…”

“Sophie, you’re not making any sense, take a breath.” She did take a breath, but it didn’t look like it helped. “What should you have known?” She looked around, like she was suddenly very aware of their being out in the open, and she grabbed his arm and pulled him through the door and into the nearest room, which was the arts and crafts room. It was still early, still empty, though it still smelled like paint and modeling dough.

“My, uh… my cousin was arrested over the weekend,” she told him.

“Oh… Sophie, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t, no, he… he’s a jerk. You’ve met him, actually, at the party?”

She didn’t have to say which party, ‘the party’ was the only one it was going to be, her birthday party, the one where Maya and the others had given a show, where they’d gotten into his car and then… the accident. He could have been an old man and ‘the party’ would always be that one night.

And he did remember Sophie’s cousin, sort of vaguely. All he really remembered was the guy had been annoying, and then he and Maya had left the party not long after meeting him.

“Yeah, I kind of remember. What’d he get arrested for?” The way Sophie clammed up, he could only imagine what the guy had gotten up to. “Okay, so… What were you apologizing for, I don’t…”

“He got arrested because I turned him in, sort of. It all happened so fast, just… last Friday, he came by our house. I never like when he’s there, but he knows my mom will always let him in, he’s her sister’s son, you know? So, I was sitting outside, and he showed up, and somehow we ended up talking about my birthday party, and he started about how he’d come that day because he figured there’d be a lot of girls there, and how he just needed to find one and… and, uh…”

She was struggling to get to the next part, and Lucas really wasn’t liking where this was going in his mind, but he let her get to it.

“That night, near the end, when we were all sitting together and he was there, he… he was sitting just behind you guys, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he replied, and he could see it in his head now. “Maya sent them packing pretty quick. Then we all went to dance one more time, and we left, and then…”

“There was something else, wasn’t there?” Sophie pressed on, and he ran through the events again.

“Well, I snagged the rest of Maya’s smoothie, I was thirsty and she’d offered it, and…” He stopped now, seeing how Sophie’s face seemed to fall resigned.

“I stayed friends with a girl he used to date, after he was at my house the other day I thought… Anyway, I called her, and we got to talking, one thing led to another… He had these pills, he…”

She was tiptoeing around the point she was trying to make, like it hurt her to even have to connect the dots, but now he was getting it, and he could feel his heart hammering against his ribcage. He saw those three guys, her cousin and his friends, sitting behind them, behind Maya and him. He saw the one, the cousin, talking to them from the space in between, heard them chuckling as they’d walked off. He saw Maya handing him her leftover smoothie, the two of them leaving, getting in the car, and then…

“I swear I had no idea,” Sophie told him, tears welling in her eyes again. “I should have made them leave the second I saw them, but I never thought they could… It could have been her, they could have… It’s all my fault, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not… Okay? You did nothing wrong,” he assured her, though his mind was so far away.

“Yeah, but neither did you,” she told him, sniffling.

He had to sit down. It was all too much all of a sudden. He couldn’t sort out his thoughts. The image that kept coming back to him somehow was that damned smoothie cup, at one time in both of their hands. In the end it had been his, but he couldn’t seem to let go of what might have happened if she’d kept it…

TO BE CONTINUED


	240. His Fight For Understanding

He hadn’t fallen asleep at the wheel. Well, he had, but he wouldn’t have. The smoothie though, whatever they’d put in it, intended for her… That had been the thing to make him doze off, he knew that now. He didn’t know how it had happened that no one had ever said anything about it, that it could have been gone so quick. They must have drawn his blood at the hospital, no?

If they’d found it in him, they would have had to know something wasn’t right, they would have questioned him and he could have told them he hadn’t taken anything. They might not have believed him, but surely, he could have figured out something, could have remembered that guy… Personally, he was really trying not to remember that guy, because when he did… When he thought about that guy being near Maya, what he’d done and what he might have done…

They hadn’t found it though, had they? And for all this time, drawing on a year, he had believed what they had all believed, that he’d been inattentive, that he’d put her in harm’s way, nearly caused her to die. She may have told him not to blame himself, because she didn’t blame him, but oh he had, and even though he had found some peace along the way, deep down he had continued to hold to this belief in him like an unshakeable truth. He’d fallen asleep. He’d crashed the car.

Now that he knew what had really happened, it should have felt like a total and complete release, but it still didn’t. He saw that cup, both their hands, fifty-fifty and nothing good on either end, but always her getting hurt. He should have seen it, shouldn’t he? He should have seen something go in that cup and immediately emptied it off somewhere before anyone could... before she… And then he thought about those guys, the party… Had they just left after Maya had sent them walking, or had they stuck around…

His stomach was roiling, his hands were shaking, but then he thought about her… Maya… up in Philly… and she had no idea… and her parents… He had to do something, he couldn’t just…

“Lucas?” Sophie’s voice brought him back to reality and he looked up at her. Now he knew what he had to do. He got up, pacing around for a few seconds before turning to the door and hurrying back out to the camp grounds. “Where are you going?”

“Can you tell them… tell them I wasn’t feeling well and I left?” he called after her, then stopped. He hadn’t gotten in the driver’s seat since that day in October, hadn’t ever wanted to, and suddenly he was walking like he was going to find his car in the camp lot before remembering he didn’t have a car, not anymore. Maybe he could call a cab, get back home, and then he’d get a few things together…

“Wait! Wait, wait, hold on,” Sophie needed to run in order to get ahead of him and get him to stop for a moment. “Are you really going home?”

“Yes,” he told her, then after a beat, “I’m not going to Philadelphia dressed like this.” She breathed out, almost smiled, then she clamped him by the shoulders.

“Let me help… please.”

“How?”

“First things first, my car’s that way.”

They ran into Rebecca on their way over to the lot, left it to her to tell the camp directors that they’d now be two counselors down, giving not much more in the way of explanations. They climbed into Sophie’s car and started off for the Friar house. He didn’t know what Sophie was thinking, not until she put in a call and started telling some man that Mrs. Zvolensky’s plane should be readied for a flight, Austin to Philadelphia, as soon as possible.

He didn’t know what was more impressive, that Sophie’s mother had her own plane ready to take off at a moment’s notice, or that Sophie herself was permitted to make use of it herself. All he knew was that, by the time they were driving up to his house, the flight was confirmed and the plane would be ready to take off in about ninety minutes.

“Go and get your things, I’ll wait here and drive you to the airport. Hurry up, okay?” For having come into their lives so shy and awkward at the start of the most recent school year, she was really starting to come into her own. At the same time, he knew the motivation behind her actions that day. She needed to make amends, in what ways she could, for the part she felt she’d played in all this mess. He couldn’t deny it would be a relief to save the money he’d have needed to spend to make his plan happen. He would have spent it gladly, of course, but now it was taken care of and it was one less thing to worry about.

“Thank you. Really,” he nodded to her.

“Go, you don’t want to miss your flight.”

“You’re not coming?” he asked, having assumed she would have to follow. “Your mom won’t mind you flying strangers around the country in her plane?”

“My mother wouldn’t bat an eye if I sent that plane to New York to pick up a pizza, did I mention she has a _lot_ of money? And you’re not a stranger, you’re my friend, and I messed up, and you need this, so just _go – get – your – things._ ”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” he hurried out of the car, dashing up to the house. His parents’ cars were in the driveway… They were here… He was going to have to tell them something… What if they said he couldn’t go? No, they wouldn’t. He was going to have to tell them what really happened back in October… He couldn’t miss that flight.

TO BE CONTINUED


	241. His Fight For Departure

It was always the case, whenever his mother would hear the door open and she didn’t expect it to open, that she would get it in her head that someone was breaking in, like the concept of unexpected homecomings didn’t exist for her. Just the same, she would never go to find out what manner of intruder had come into her home, so the person who came to find him running up the steps two at a time was his father.

“Shouldn’t you be at camp?” he called up after him.

“Yes,” Lucas called back. He hurried into his room, grabbed a bag, and he had no idea what he was supposed to pack for a situation like this.

“Where do you think you’re going?” his father asked, standing at his door.

“Philadelphia,” Lucas informed him, getting some clothes together. He would be the only passenger on that plane, he could change there, right? He got some money together, for cabs, food… Phone charger, just in case, what else?

“Alright, stop, hold on. You can’t just take off like that.”

“Sure, I can, plane takes off in eighty-five minutes.”

“You bought a plane ticket?” his father blinked.

“No, Sophie got me a flight on her mom’s plane.”

“Lucas…” his father had that tone like he was about to put his foot down. Lucas turned to face him.

“The night of the accident, Sophie’s cousin put something in Maya’s smoothie, but I ended up being the one to drink it, and because of that I fell asleep in the car. Sophie only just found out, and she told me, and I’m going to Philadelphia.” His father stared at him for a moment.

“Go, I’ll talk to your mother.”

He let out a deep breath, almost thrown off balance, like for a moment what had happened and might now happen was all mixing up together inside him. His father was there, and he steadied him, gave him a nod. Lucas nodded back, and he took off back down the stairs and out the door to the car waiting for him. As soon as he shut the door, Sophie started them on the way to the airport.

He only had a vague memory of the drive from his house to the airport. He kept thinking about her, about Maya, and in that moment not even about what he’d learned, what he’d have to tell her. In that moment, the one thought he had was… _I’m going to see her_. As much as they’d soldiered on to get through the time, having zero choice in the matter, now that he was on his way to see her, it felt like the blinders he’d pulled on had now fallen away. Finally, finally… _I’m going to see her._

They got to the airport, and Lucas might have felt the uniqueness of this flight if he wasn’t so caught up in what waited on the other side of it. Sophie’s car was allowed through, all the way to where the plane waited, and there, ‘Miss Zvolensky’ was greeted before she went on to put their passenger into the flight crew’s hands. They called him Mr. Friar, and he could only nod in confirmation that, yes, that was him.

“Go get her,” Sophie told him as a send-off, with a smile like she’d watched a lot of romantic comedies in her life and had just been waiting for the opportunity to tell that to someone.

“Miss Zvolensky,” he tipped his head to her before giving her the hug she had more than earned.

He got on to the small plane, where he was directed to buckle up for the take-off. He followed all requests, and within minutes they were in the air. It was really happening. He was going to Philadelphia to find her. He was sitting on a plane, he was looking at the city getting small under him, and it all still felt like he was dreaming. When he was told he could unbuckle and leave his seat if he needed it, he got up at once. He couldn’t have stayed sitting there much longer.

He’d left in so much of a hurry, he didn’t know exactly what he was going to do once he got there. He knew the address of the house where she was staying, but there was no guarantee she’d be there, and if she wasn’t, he didn’t know where she could be. He didn’t know the address for the Matthews house, he could probably find the store where she’d been working…

At some point he’d have to face her parents, and once they saw him, saw he had flown all the way there, they could still turn him away, but he couldn’t let them… not this time, no…

He took his bag into the plane’s bathroom and changed out of his camp clothes. There was actually a shower on the plane, and he briefly considered it, but thought better than to risk anything going wrong in there. He had showered this morning, hadn’t he? Yes… Man, his head was a mess… _I’m going to see her…_

There was soap, there was a toothbrush and toothpaste, so he freshened up as best he could. There was a comb, he fixed his hair. He stepped out of that bathroom feeling like a new person, or… another person… He felt like that boy who’d tried to go and talk to his girlfriend’s parents before being turned away. But it would be different this time… Everything would be different, it would be… He had to believe it, had to know it. _I’m going to see her._

He sat and not so much watched but looked at the television screen, where he’d turned on… it looked like some kind of cooking competition, he really wasn’t paying attention… After he wasn’t sure how long in flight, he was informed they were about to go in and land… Philadelphia… He was here.

TO BE CONTINUED


	242. His Fight For Confessions

He had no idea where he was going. He should have looked at maps back on the plane, he should have… He should have realized that Sophie Zvolensky didn’t do anything halfway. There was a hired car waiting for him, some guy in a suit and hat holding a paper with his name printed in bold letters on it.

“She really watches a lot of movies…” he mumbled to himself before approaching the driver and proving he was indeed the Lucas Friar he was waiting on. He gave him the address for the rented house, and the driver asked if he could take his bag. “That’s alright, I’ve got it,” Lucas blinked before following him to the car. And they were off.

She wasn’t at the house. No one was at the house when he showed up. He thought briefly of calling Riley and casually asking where her grandparents lived, but there was no way that wasn’t going to lead to her figuring out he was in the city. Pulling out his phone, he started doing some searches, he hoped, would lead him to an address for Riley’s grandparents. They could be there, right?

By some chance or miracle, it had taken him a lot less time than he thought it would before he came upon another address to give his driver. The man, patient as ever, had looked at the address on the screen and nodded, and off they went.

He could hear dogs barking when he got out of the car in front of the Matthews house. He knew they’d have to be here, because he knew… Those were her dogs’ barks, and there went his heart again. When the door opened, even as he was coming up the path, he stalled, wondering if she was…

“Lucas? What… What?” Riley stood on the doorstep, eyes bugged to the max.

“Is she here?” he asked, taking a breath.

“I… No, she’s working at the store today,” Riley told him, and he closed his eyes. He’d known that, too, she’d told him last night when they’d talked, but in all that had been happening he’d just forgotten. He could have gone right there and saved himself the run around the city, or…

They must have heard Riley from inside the house, because suddenly there they all were, Maya’s parents, Riley’s parents, her brother, Smackle, and Riley’s grandmother, all of them staring at him. He had to say something. Whatever they were going to say or do, he had to talk first.

“Riley, do you remember that night at the party, those guys who came up to us at the end of the night?” he addressed his friend and she hesitated, looking to the others standing behind her and looking at her, before turning back to him.

“Sophie’s cousin and his friends, yes, I remember.” He took a breath.

“That one, the cousin. Sophie told me this morning that he was arrested, he had these pills, he… He had some that night, and the other day he told Sophie how he’d gone to the party, that he was going to find a girl and…” He had to stop, take another breath. He really would have rather not do this standing outside like this, but what other choice did he have? “After they left us alone, Maya gave me the last of her smoothie, remember?”

He could see it happen, the click, in just about every face staring back at him from inside the door. Now they knew… they knew…

“Alright, can I just, excuse me,” Riley’s grandmother cut past her son and his wife to stand next to her granddaughter. “Come in, please, let’s sit down here for a minute. Come on,” she waved him forward. Lucas’ eyes turned briefly to Maya’s parents and, when neither of them looked about to tell him to leave, he walked into the Matthews house and the door was closed with him on the other side of it this time.

“How did you get here?” his teacher asked him.

“Sophie drove me to the airport, put me on her mother’s plane, had a driver waiting for me when I landed,” he rattled off, still a bit uneasy with all of them staring at him, and his heart… it really needed to settle down.

“Woah…” Riley replied with a tremor in her voice like she watched a lot of romantic comedies, too. Lucas took a breath and turned to face Shawn and Katy.

They hadn’t said a word, but he could see in their faces how they were still processing what he’d just told them. Shawn had that anger in his eyes again, but for the first time in months Lucas was pretty sure it had nothing to do with him and more with the guy who’d put something in his daughter’s drink, even if she hadn’t consumed it. As for Maya’s mother, she looked like all at once she’d let out a breath she’d been holding for all this time, but also felt the consequences of a belief they’d held all this time, now shown false.

“I’m not here to argue about anything that happened since that day. You needed to know, and she… she needs to know. I don’t know what it’s going to mean moving forward, I just…” He’d waited so long to get to speak his piece that, now that the time had come, he felt like he needed to get each word right. “Your daughter means more to me than my own… everything. Her safety, her happiness, go above my own. All this time I really thought the accident was my fault, and I carried that weight with me, still do even now that I know what actually happened that night. I accepted everything, accepted you forcing me away from her because as far as I was concerned I deserved it. When she didn’t want to come here this summer, I told her she should, because if there was a chance for the three of you to be okay with each other again, when I know how much it means to her that she has her family now, then she should take it. I love her… I love her, and that means wanting what’s best for her, even if that means I have to step back. But I’m not stepping back today,” he shook his head. “I’m here, and I’m asking you… if I can be part of what’s best for her again.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	243. His Fight For Her

He saw her through the window. She had her back turned, restocking a display on the counter near the cash register. But there she was. He reminded himself to take a breath, not entirely sure his lungs were cooperating anymore, having thrown in with his heart, beating like he’d tripped some kind of proximity alert. _There she is… there she is._ Somehow the first thought that entered his mind was that her hair had gotten longer. She kept saying she would cut it soon, even just a little, and she still hadn’t. In the month they’d been apart, it had started lengthening past her lower back.

“Go in there,” Riley whispered from behind him and he startled, pulling out of sight again and turning to her and Smackle, who’d insisted on following him.

“I am,” he told her, his hands absently moving to check his hair was okay… again. “You could have stayed at your grandparents, you know?”

“No, but we had to,” Riley insisted, “For…” Her eyes were searching, and she turned to Smackle.

“Science,” the girl declared, and Riley pointed at her.

“What she said. For science,” she nodded with a grin. He gave something between a squint and a frown, took another breath, and then turned back to the store, only to find himself face to face with a white haired man and startling again.

“Grandpa, shh, come here,” Riley’s hands shot out, pulling her grandfather out of sight with them. “Grandpa, Lucas. Lucas, Grandpa,” her finger moved from one to the other and back.

“Yes, we’ve met,” Alan Matthews told his granddaughter, all the while staring at the boy in front of him. “Want to tell me what you three are doing out here?”

“I would be happy to,” Riley nodded, turning to Lucas and tilting her head toward the store. Breathing, check. Hair, check. There was absolutely nothing to be nervous about, and it wasn’t nerves, it was quite the opposite. He was so close now that keeping it together to surprise her was the hard part.

She’d finished with the display, and from what he saw, she was now leaning to the counter, standing at the register, reading a book he knew she needed for English class this year and passing the time on what appeared to be a quiet day at the store. He got an idea just as he walked into the store and the chime of the bell didn’t stir her out of her reading.

He moved quietly across the store, looking around until he found just the thing he’d need. No reason to make too much of a mess, right? There was a stacked pile of what were either sleeping bags or tents, he wasn’t sure. Promising himself he would help put it all back after, he gave the stack a good push and moved out of sight before it properly started to tip over and spill out across the store’s floor. He heard a book thump against the counter and bit back a smirk. From his hiding spot, he watched as Maya walked around the counter, stopping to stand in front of the avalanche of sleeping bags or tents…

“Sure, make a stack, that won’t go wrong,” she intoned with a huff, crouching to start gathering everything again. Carefully, he walked up to stand a few feet behind her, and then, with none of the restraint from that one time in the middle of the restaurant, he let out their call, like at their basketball games.

Her head turned so fast she might have gotten whiplash. She saw him, and it was as though her emotional controls had called up laughter, tears, shock, relief, and pure joy and just… tossed them all up on to her face at once.

“No joke, did I get buried under these sleeping bags and pass out or something?” she asked, slowly standing from her crouch.

“You did not… also sorry about that,” he nodded to the sleeping bags – not tents – around her feet.

“Lucas Friar, vandalizing this here stack I spent _five_ whole minutes… stacking… What am I going to do with you?” she asked, walking up toward him.

“Consider me at the mercy of your just punishment,” he tipped his head, and in the next moment she had jumped bodily into his arms, and he held her tight, feet clear off the ground.

He wanted to throw in another joke, but really, he lost his words the moment his arms closed around her, his face buried in her hair. It reminded him of one particularly lonely day where he’d walked through a store and almost bought a bottle of what he knew to be her shampoo, so the scent might call up the memory of her.

“You’re here, how are you here?” she asked, and now she was only crying, overjoyed crying. He set her down, stalling on the answer so he might kiss his girlfriend for the first time in weeks, and she gladly surrendered into this for a while before pausing for breath.

“It’s a long story,” he told her. “Can we sit somewhere?”

So, they sat down, on the bench near the shoe section, and he told her what he’d found out that morning when Sophie had shown up at the camp. By now it didn’t seem possible that this was just a few hours ago, that he’d been in Austin this morning and now he was here, in Philadelphia, with her.

She took the revelation of the dosed smoothie and its implications about as well as he’d done. She hadn’t even been the one to drink it in the end, but she knew she might have, and then…

“Wow…” was all she could say, sobered up from the reunion. He had her hands in his, and she was holding on tight. After a few seconds, she looked at him. “My parents, they…”

“I already told them,” he revealed.

“You did?”

“I went looking for you at your rental first, then the grandparents’… I forgot you were working today. They were all there, and… we talked.” Her eyebrows raised, as though to ask ‘and?’ “We didn’t really get to talk a whole lot after I said everything. I think they want to wait until we’re both there.” She nodded, understanding. Then she just looked at him again, like she’d forgotten for a second that he was really here with her. She wrapped her arms around his middle, settling her head to his shoulder, and he smiled, closing his arms around her, too, kissing the top of her head.

Someone cleared their throat, and as they both looked up at once, expecting Alan Matthews, they found instead the entire party from the Matthews house had relocated here, fronted by Maya’s mother and father.

“Hi…” Maya spoke slowly. Well they were all here now, weren’t they?

TO BE CONTINUED


	244. His Fight For Them

Riley’s grandfather had given Maya the rest of the afternoon off, insisting he would take care of the spilled sleeping bags, tapping his son’s shoulder as he did. Shawn and Katy had left the store with Maya and Lucas in tow, the four of them reconvening to a nearby diner.

They sat in a booth now, the parents on one side, the kids on the other. Under the table, Lucas reached for Maya’s hand again, and she gripped his gladly. Ever since they’d left the store, they’d sort of been left in this standstill, like no one knew what to say or where to start. It had all been about as uncomfortable as it could get between them all ever since the previous October, and now that they’d come to this point, this sort of fork in the road, it wasn’t up to the two of them to choose which side they followed from here on out, and waiting to find out what the adults sitting across from them had to say was just impossible.

“So,” Maya took up her courage and started. “Is it over now?” she asked, and there was no need to specify what she meant by ‘it.’ The ban, the forced separation… Her parents barely had to look to one another to know what the other’s answer would be.

“I… Yeah,” her father breathed, and Lucas heard in his voice something like shame, and exhaustion.

When he said it, Maya let out a breath of her own, turning to him, and Lucas smiled at her, giving her hand a squeeze.

They were looking at him now, the both of them, and Lucas could just see how they were searching for words, to explain themselves, or to possibly apologize for what they’d put him through, put him _and_ Maya through, and just seeing that… it was enough for him. He didn’t need them to apologize. He’d always understood them, a lot more than he could say.

“So… what’s everyone having?” he asked, opening his menu.

“I tell you what, this place will make you like French toast,” Maya chimed in, at once catching on to his goal.

“Not possible,” he chuckled.

“I’m telling you. I’ve had so much of it they’re about to call it The Maya,” she gestured in mid-air.

“It’s too eggy,” he insisted.

“That’s the best part! Dad, tell him,” she nodded across the table. Shawn and Katy were staring back at them, and to see the smiles creeping up over their faces, maybe they were seeing the immediate change in their daughter, or they were understanding that the whole thing had finally been put behind them. One way or the other, Katy looked to her menu, while Shawn turned to his daughter’s boyfriend.  
  


“I’d listen to her if I were you,” he gave a confident nod, smiling to Maya.

“I try to make a rule of it,” Lucas promised. “Fine, I’ll try The Maya,” he mimicked her gesture. “What are you having?”

“Maybe a burger?” she tilted her head, staring at her menu.

“Wait, so I’m having the French toast and you’re not? What happened to ‘I have it all the time?’” he asked, imitating her again.

“You just said it, I have it all the time. Gotta try something else sometime,” she turned to look at him, giving his shoulder a bump. “Oh, will you let me have a bite of yours, just a little?” she grinned at him.

“Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be?” he asked, with a wide smile and wide eyes. She nodded. He mock-sighed. “Fine. Can I get a couple of your fries?” She shook her head, laughing. “That’s a hard bargain there, Hart.”

“Fine, here’s a counter-offer. You finish the French toast – minus my part – and tell me how good it was, and you can have all the fries you want.”

“I’d get that in writing if I were you,” Katy chuckled, and Maya looked up at her.

“Mom!” she whispered, miming for her not to spill her secrets, and the parents laughed.

When they left the diner – Lucas had been converted to The Maya from first bite, and he’d found a stash of fries set aside just for him – they were left to address the one subject still on the table. Now that circumstances had changed, Lucas could see Maya’s parents wondered what it would mean for the rest of the summer. They still had a few weeks to go here, as they’d planned, and it seemed all too natural that they wouldn’t want to let go of one another now that he was here. And yet, without need of discussing this either, both Lucas and Maya only had to look to the other for a moment to know what the rest of the summer would be.

He would be flying back to Austin that evening, just as he’d come, on his own. Maya and Riley and Smackle would finish their time in Philadelphia as they had started it. They had a few more engagements for the band scheduled, and they couldn’t see themselves cancelling those. One of those especially was set to take place at a local fair, the perfect setting for young attendees to drive in from New York and stand and cheer for TXNY and their lead singing big sister. And his ‘sick day’ behind him, Lucas would be expected back at camp in the morning.

More than anything, now that they had the promise of a return to peace to look forward to, leading into their senior year, the separation became something different. She was vacationing with her family and that was that… They would miss each other still, they knew, but then that was just par for the course, wasn’t it? And who knew, maybe ‘Air Zvolensky’ would enable another visit here or there throughout the weeks to come… If they could make it so, Lucas would really want to be there for Nellie and Gracie’s first birthday in a couple of weeks.

TO BE CONTINUED


	245. His Fight For Summer

It was the last day of camp. Lucas looked at all those kids he’d had in his group over the summer, and he immediately felt… he was going to miss them… some more than others, definitely. He wasn’t sure he’d miss yellow shirts. After all these weeks wearing them almost every day, he was getting this close to refusing to ever wear yellow again.

School was a week away now, which was quite possibly the strangest thing of all. Senior year… one foot still in high school, the other in the process of planting itself in some college or another… By the end of this year, they all knew a lot of things would change, and it was so nerve wracking, but Lucas wanted to undergo this period in his life with optimism more than nervousness. How could he not? He had not felt so light in months…

Maya was coming home in three days. Their calls in the past few days had been almost exclusively dedicated to how they would spend the last days before school started, as though they would be able to fit weeks and weeks of lost time together down into four days. Then again, if anyone would ever pull that off, it’d be her.

“Hey?” he startled, turning from the table where he’d been fixing up snacks for the group, only to discover it was Scottie, tapping at his back to get his attention. “Two more minutes, okay?” he promised, looking at the boy now standing there looking up at him, hands joined behind his back, the better to put his shirt on display. It wasn’t the usual orange of the camp and his age group. _TXNY._ Kid’s size. “Where’d you get that?” Lucas smiled. In response, Scottie pointed his finger down toward the playground, just as they were met with drums and a guitar playing, and the sound of cheering children.

Lucas abandoned his snacks and started off at a run, Scottie following as fast as he could behind him. They came up over the hill now, and there they were, on the old stage. Nadine. Smackle. Riley. And Maya at the microphone, addressing the masses of kids gathered up to watch them. TXNY… 100%.

“Everyone ready?” Maya called to the crowd, and they all replied with a resounding yes. “Good, then I want to hear you if you know the words!”

The band closed the summer season with their liveliest show, and Lucas gladly sang along with his campers, whether or not his singing was any good. They spent the rest of the day at the camp, too, making this last day even more memorable than ever. By the time it was all said and done, everyone was exhausted and glad to go home.

“Well if it isn’t good ol’ Huckleberry,” Maya grinned when they finally had a chance to talk, and he welcomed her with a good, solid hug.

“I thought you were supposed to get back in three days.”

“And that’s why they’re called surprises, so you’re surprised… Surprise,” she smiled with pride. “So… want to come over tonight, help me unpack, have dinner with us, maybe watch a movie?” He had to just breathe out, reflecting on how long it had been since they’d done that… well, without him having to sneak in or out.

“Yes, to all of that.”

The last few weeks had really felt like the world had snapped back into shape after being strained for so long. And for that snap back, everything had been heightened, better than good. It had included the twins’ birthday party, a grand affair if there ever was one. Not only had Sophie let Lucas fly on her mother’s plane again, she’d flown them all down there, Lucas, and Farkle, and Zay, and Nadine, and Asher and Dylan, Joey and Rebecca, Scott, Ray, and herself, of course.

When Maya had seen them come through the door of the rental house… Oh, he could still see the look on her face. He knew how much she’d missed getting them all in one place over the summer, and now here they had it, if only for a day.

Ray had set off for college already by the time she came back, even if she was early. And Farkle had gone back to New York. Smackle had come down to Austin with them, but she was returning home, too, in a couple of days. They would use those precious short days with the four of them in one city to get a few things done. Lucas was more than happy to pitch in when he heard of this. It just so happened that his schedule was now wide open.

Walking up to the little house, the Hunter Hart home, Lucas still felt the smallest bit of nerves, like he hadn’t completely shaken off the last few months’ ‘unwelcomed’ air hanging around the place. But then Maya took his hand, and she smiled at him, and they walked through the door. All was well. They went down to the basement so he could help her unpack, and they were told by Katy Hart that dinner would be ready in an hour.

“Is it okay that it’s weird? A little?” he asked, while Maya pulled her first suitcase on to her bed and opened it.

“I think it’d be weird if it wasn’t weird. Just, you know, breathe a little? You’ll be fine.”

They spent the time it took to finish unpacking Maya’s things, putting them away and returning the suitcases to storage, discussing their plans for the last week of summer. This would involve going on runs in the morning, practicing for basketball after that. Much as they’d tried to keep up some kind of schedule for that over the summer, their situations had made it a bit hard. It was something at least that they’d managed to get all assigned readings and other school things dealt with.

Then there’d be all the TXNY business for the two days they’d have with all four members before Smackle went back to New York. New pictures, new videos, recordings… After that, as much as they could have planned a whole load of activities, in order to make their final days of freedom before starting school again as seniors even better, they took a different route. They were going to do what the last months, last almost a year, had not permitted them to do… They would just hang out, be around each other… Whatever they chose to do after that, it would depend on what they felt like as the moment.

“So, you still don’t have a car, and that’s fine. But I will expect you on my doorstep, nice and early on that first day, and the day after that, and the one after that, and so on and so forth,” Maya declared, as they were gathering up the empty suitcases. “All of a sudden, I have just _completely_ forgotten the way to school, and if you’re not here, I’ll just get lost,” she shrugged.

“Oh, we wouldn’t want that,” he gave her mock sadness.

“Not at all, no,” she agreed, breaking into a laugh. He let out a sigh, thinking of the car situation. He hadn’t wanted to drive again, not after the accident, and he’d been at ease with the choice, but now that everything had changed again, he was starting to wonder. “Hey, where’d you go?” she asked, tapping his arm.

“Just thinking about cars,” he told her.

“Right… Can’t you get your old car back? They fixed it, didn’t they?”

“I… kind of sold it, gave the money to my parents after they paid for the repairs,” he finally admitted, and Maya blinked in surprise. “After that night I didn’t even want to see it again. Not sure I could get back in it and not think about what happened, especially now that we know…” They both grew quiet for a moment, thinking about it. Sophie’s cousin, the smoothie, the what ifs…

“Can you get a new one? Not a _new_ one, just a different one?”

“I could… but it would mean taking it from the trip fund, and I’m not doing that.” He turned to her. “Really, I’m not,” he insisted, his way of telling her he wasn’t going to do it, and he didn’t want them to do it for him either. “I can walk, I can take the bus. I’d rather go on that trip with all of you, just like we’ve been planning, than have another car.”

“Can’t believe it’s next summer already,” she sighed, smiling. When they’d started planning for it, the whole thing had just been an eternity away, and now senior year was on their heels.

_“En tout cas, on est prêt pour la France,”_ he told her, chin raised, and she laughed. Yes, they were ready for France, and any other French speaking countries they might visit.

“We should probably try and pick up some basics for a few other languages, too,” she suggested.

“Definitely. Well, we have a year.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	246. Their Choice For Day One

Lucas woke up on the first day of senior year feeling the last remnants of that dark year finally starting to be shed from him. Today was a new beginning, although really it felt more like a bridge to the past. A lot of things were not so much starting this morning as they were returning. After nearly a year of being unable to hold up what had been their tradition for so long, this morning he was expected down at Maya’s house, where he would pick her up and they would make their way to Riley’s to pick _her_ up, and then the three of them would continue on toward school.

And then, school… All those months when there’d been the ban hanging over their heads… Even though they still attended school together, had some classes together, there was always this air like they were doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing whenever they’d spend time together, or talk together… There’d been that whole period where it had been particularly enforced in their classes, too, the two of them forced to sit far apart from one another…

All that was gone now, and the thought of it was such a relief, it made it so that he couldn’t wait to go and to sit in his new classes, the ones they had together, and just sit together, side by side or one behind the other. He thought back to the old days, where they were all starting together, and they would have a whole block of desks, just their group together. There were so many more of them now, it seemed, six of them, then seven, and eight, and nine…

It was a rare thing for all of them in one grade to have a class together, sure. Every year there had only been the one, world history with Mr. Matthews. This year, like a parting gift in their senior year, they had two, the last two of the day, every day, economics first, and then world history to close the day. Ten of them, as Sophie Zvolensky had come to properly occupy her place as one of their closest friends…

He got out of bed that morning, as he had done the last few days, unable to keep from noting the absence of Ray in the bed across his room. His unexpected brother was off to college now, and the room was once again all his own. For a little while it had been three of them in that room, when Farkle had come to visit, after his internship had been over. Lucas didn’t know if they would have been just as good if not for the relief brought out of his having mended with Maya’s parents. He’d never have to find out, and that was good enough.

Coming down the stairs, dressed and ready to go, he stared off into the kitchen, catching his father’s eye, giving the signal they had made for themselves, which boiled down to ‘How’s Mom, can I go in there without getting smothered?’ His father’s response that morning, the morning of his wife’s precious Luke’s last year of high school starting, well… It said she’d be in high form, but really did he have any choice? With a sigh, he’d marched into the kitchen.

By the time he had finally managed to both eat his breakfast and detach himself from his mother, he had to hurry out, grabbing his schoolbag and starting on his way to Maya’s house. He’d had to remind himself it wasn’t like those mornings where he’d had his car to go and get her. It would take him longer to get there, so he had to leave earlier, especially knowing her and how she liked to be there early, especially on those first days.

He still thought about the car thing sometimes. On that morning he definitely thought about it. Truth be told, he was actually looking forward to going back to the way it had been before, when they would walk to Riley’s instead of just driving. A good stretch of the two of them walking along, hand in hand, talking about this and that, the odd stop here and there for a kiss or two or five… It was their last year here, their last chance to have their old ways back, and as he made his way to her house that morning, he knew that was what he wanted for this year more than anything. High school’s swan song, college on the horizon, sure, that’d be part of it. But mostly, truly, he wanted to enjoy this year while they still had it. Morning walks to school were just the first thing.

But the car… It came in handy sometimes, though they did try and do without it a lot of the time, too. Why did it matter so much right now? Maybe it was just… some last obstacle he wanted to cross, to show they had made it to the other side of everything that had happened with the accident? Maybe he was making it into something else than what it was, what it needed to be. Maybe before long he wouldn’t even think about it anymore. Whatever needed to happen would happen…

As he came walking up her street, he thought about those first mornings where he had come to pick her up from home. They were working on that haunted house for Auggie Matthews’ school’s Halloween celebration, they would use those mornings to talk, and plan… and then in that haunted house, that almost kiss… and the morning after that, when everything had really taken off for them. It all seemed like a whole lifetime ago, other people, but it was still them.

Those walks had led them to a new beginning. These walks, starting today, they would be one, too. He walked up to the little house, and he rang the bell. Katy Hart answered, with Nellie in her arms and wailing. He offered to take her for a minute.

“Not unless you _want_ spit up on your clean shirt, first day of school,” she chuckled. “Come on in, _her_ shirt wasn’t so lucky, she’s changing, and she’ll be out.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	247. Their Choice For Mornings

Maya had woken up ridiculously early that morning because… well, that was just what she did, on days like this more than ever. First day of school… last first day of high school. Every new year that started here in Texas, there would always be that moment of reflection, of thinking of her old life in New York, of how much she’d changed since she’d come here. Good changes, all of them, no regrets on her part. She’d uncovered that sort of miraculous enjoyment for school after coming here, and right about now, with college right around the corner, she was never happier about that fact.

Would she have ever imagined herself anxiously headed into a trio of advanced placement classes, imagined herself looking forward to learning things she could use in her future, in the vision she had for that future, of what she would do with her life? Sure, she’d been so much younger then, and her whole world had been so different, but even then, that old version of her, she would have looked at the life she now had and she would never have believed that it could be _her_ life. Five whole years, just about…

Up so early as she was, she’d been able to calmly get up, and shower, and get dressed, eat her breakfast, make sure she had everything in her bag that she would need to have with her. When all that was done, she’d gone into the nursery, looking in on her little sisters, still sleeping in their cribs. They were a year old already… how was _that_ for time flying so fast, changing the world? Everything that had happened in this last year, oh… The two of them had been such a bright spot in all of it. Some days they had been her only reason for coming home.

But that was all done now, all behind them. Things had slipped back into the way they’d been before, much easier than she would have thought they would. She wasn’t complaining, not at all. Now that whole period was a closed chapter, and it didn’t linger… Except maybe in those moments where she’d go and think about it, right? She really needed to stop doing that, but that was new years starting for you. They made her think of what had been, what was, and what could be.

Much as she’d put it behind her – or been too preoccupied to really think about it for a while – there was still the reminder in her that, when she went off to college, there was still the possibility that she would end up going somewhere far, somewhere that wasn’t going to allow her to drop in and visit home. She might be very far, and her little sisters would be back here, growing, and growing, and becoming people, and she wouldn’t be there to see it. She’d been doing her best _not_ to think about that chance, but now she was getting to think that maybe she _should_ think about it, that she should make sure this year with them would be a good one, even if they were still very small and probably wouldn’t remember any of it… She was going to make it a good one.

Then of course, while she was thinking of the two of them, she also had to think of those four over in New York. Her half-siblings, the ones by Kermit. They’d had one week together and it had been a wonderful week. Then they’d come down to Philly for the day of the fair, and all through those weeks, there or back here, they had continued their calls, as they would continue them now. But she wanted to find ways to get to see them more often, too, even if she had to factor the Kermit of it all. She hadn’t seen him once over the summer just passed, and that was how she’d preferred it, but if she was going to keep having Sam, Cara, Eliza, and Wyatt in her life – and she well intended to – then there may be those times where she would have to deal with him, and she’d have to make her peace with it.

“How long have you been up?” her mother asked, coming into the nursery to find her there, walking around with a just awakened Nellie.

“A while,” Maya innocently told her.

“You did sleep though, yeah?” her mother smiled.

“Oh, yeah, definitely. Wouldn’t be smart to show up on my first day looking like a zombie, would it?” she looked to her little sister in her arms, making a face at her. Her reward for this was a giggle… and some spit down the front of her shirt. “Yep, had that coming,” she sighed, passing Nellie on to their mother before going into the basement again, peeling off the stained shirt and facing her closet. When she heard the doorbell, she more or less closed her eyes and pointed at random. Opening her eyes to see her choice, she shrugged and slipped on the clean shirt, inspecting the new look. “That might actually be better… Penelope Hunter, I fear your eye for fashion,” she smirked before dashing up to meet Lucas.

“Good morning,” he smiled when he saw her.

“It really is,” she went to get a hold of her bag before going around to kiss her sisters, and her mother, and to wish a good day to her father, just waking now. “Senior year, let’s do this,” she pointed to the door, and they took off toward Riley’s house.

“So, do I get to see your schedule now?” he asked.

“Not yet, no,” she shook her head.

“You’ve told me parts of it already…”

“Well you knew about French, that’s kind of our thing,” she counted off. “And we _all_ have Economics and History at the end of the day, so that wasn’t a stretch. Come on, you can wait a little longer, can’t you?”

“What if… I guess…” he suggested, and she turned to him, intrigued.

“Give it your best shot, Huckleberry.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	248. Their Choice For Beginnings

By the time they made it to Riley’s, he was possibly more confused about Maya’s schedule than ever, which was probably how she’d wanted it. He would make one guess, and she’d make him think he had it right, but then by the next one he’d have to wonder if she’d been tricking him, and by the one after that he really didn’t know anymore. So, he relented. He would wait until they got to school and everyone was comparing their schedules, figuring out where they’d be, together, apart, who would do what… It was always something of a surprise, finding the choices some of them had made.

They arrived, the three of them, before any of the others, same as it had always been, up until… well, those months. There really was no way not to bring it up a lot of the time, was there? So, they were first, and they went and sat on their bench, waiting for the others to start to show up.

“It’s going to be so weird,” Riley shook her head.

“Yes… Yes, it will…” Maya agreed, then, “What will?”

“Well, all the ones that graduated are gone, and with basketball coming back… We could be looking at some of the new players right now,” she declared, observing some of the other students starting to arrive.

“We still don’t even know if all the old players that haven’t graduated yet are going to try out,” Lucas pointed out. “There’s the two of us,” he motioned to Maya, and she gave a firm nod. “Nadine’s out…” Now Maya’s nod sank into a sigh. Even if she understood why it had to be that way, she would still miss being on the team with her. “Zay hasn’t said, Asher either, or Dylan…”

“How about it, Riley, want to give it a shot?” Maya bumped her best friend’s shoulder. Riley gave her a look. “Please? For me? One little try out?” she went on, cranking up the pleading face.

“Oh, don’t do that, it’s not fair,” Riley tried to look away, the sky, the school, anything. Lucas moved around to look at Maya’s face.

“Yikes, even _I_ would join the girls’ team looking at that face,” he declared, and at once Maya turned to face him. “Not that they’d let me,” he pointed out.

“Maybe I need to turn this face at _them_ ,” she schemed with shining eyes.

“If that worked, we would have gotten the teams back a long time ago,” Nadine laughed as she walked up to them.

“Quick, sit here, just in case,” Riley slid down the bench and pointed to the free spot between her and Maya, only to have the blonde slide to meet her before Nadine had the chance to move.

“Please? _Please?_ ” Maya took Riley’s arm and gave it a couple tugs.

“I’m more of a… coaching type?” Riley insisted slowly. “Does Sophie play? Maybe _she_ can try out.” Maya sat up, at once intrigued.

“Sophie…” she repeated. Almost summoned, there came the girl now, walking unsuspectingly up to the school and toward the bench.

“Run, girl, run!” Lucas called out, and there was some debate whether he was encouraging Maya or warning Sophie, as his girlfriend took off to meet Sophie and gave her the pitch, something like ‘be part of the victorious return of our school’s team.’

“I… I’ve never really played,” Sophie admitted.

“Oh, we can show you. We’re kind of champions. Well, we were, until they broke up the teams. That’s done now though. We’re coming back this year… and we need new blood.”

“Maybe literally,” Nadine nodded to Maya, who seemed to be on a one-girl mission to bulk up their ranks again.

“Hush,” Maya waved her off. “You left us… I wish you luck.” Nadine blew her a kiss, laughing.

The conversation was left as pending as far as Sophie’s joining the team, as more of their friends started to trickle along, until finally they were all there, sitting on or standing around the bench, and the mystery of schedules came to an end.

“You’re doing metal again?” Maya learned, seeing Lucas’ schedule. “First thing in the morning, it’s like they _want_ you to lose a finger,” she shook her head.

“I am wide awake, my fingers are safe,” he promised her, holding out his hand so she’d hand over her own schedule. When she finally did, he scanned it over, feeling there had to be something she was trying to hold on to as a surprise for her to make such a big deal of waiting, and as soon as he looked at the page he found out what it was, right there in fourth period. He smiled, looking back at her.

“Yes, that’s right, this year, I get to see the Cowboy Shimmy up close and personal,” she announced.

“That’s not a thing,” Lucas told her.

“Sure, it is,” Zay insisted, giving a quick demonstration, quick because Nadine had been quick to put an end to it, shaking her head at him.

“Wait, you’re doing dance with us this year?” Sophie smiled, and Maya nodded.

“No drawing?” Lucas asked.

“Sacrificed and replaced with AP Art History,” Maya confirmed, pointing to her first period class. “Much as I liked getting the chance to draw or paint for credit, it just felt like I needed to push a little further.”

“Wait, I have that, too,” Sophie declared. Maya took her schedule from Lucas and passed it down to their newest friend. “Wow, we have the exact same schedule… except the languages, I’m doing Spanish and you’re in French.”

“Now, you just stick with me, Zvolensky, we’re going to take this school by storm,” Maya intoned as her schedule was returned to her. “And then, just maybe, the basketball court, too.”

“I guess I can try,” Sophie smiled.

“You can come to my house with the rest of us this afternoon, we can throw the ball around,” Dylan suggested.

“Okay,” Sophie turned her smile to him. There was the eagerness in her all over again. Maya also knew, via Lucas’ tale of the flight to Philadelphia, that she could get pretty intense, too. If she managed to put that into playing basketball, oh… they could be unstoppable this year.

TO BE CONTINUED


	249. Their Choice For the Year

Walking into the school itself that morning, they really started to feel it… the beginning of the end. It got to the point where all of them had set themselves a tax, anyone being in any way overly dramatic about their being seniors would have to put a quarter in a jar (jar pending).

“I don’t have that much money,” Riley complained, “And it may come as a shock to you, but I can be a bit dramatic.”

“You? Never…” Maya mock gasped. “Alright, off you go, go debate the hell out of them, they won’t know what hit ‘em.”

“She means that literally,” Nadine nodded, following Riley, Zay, and Joey off to Debate.

“Seriously, guard those fingers, I’m going to count them when I see you in third,” Maya kissed Lucas off to his first period, watching him walk off with Dylan.

“And then there were four,” Asher looked around, as he and Rebecca would also be doing AP Art History.

“How are you doing? Alright?” Maya asked as they walked to class. She knew as well as any of their friends that this year would be different in a whole other way for him, now that Ray had gone off to college and he was still here for another year before he could go and join him.

“Would it be really bad if I said I hope all the guys at that college are really gross?” Asher shrugged.

“Those guys? Oh, they just pick their nose, all the time, and then just…” Maya rolled an imaginary little bit of booger between her fingers and flicked it.

“Is it those same guys that scratch themselves, too?” Rebecca pointed at her, and Maya pointed back.

“The very ones!”

“I hear they kick puppies,” Sophie chimed in.

“The absolute worst,” Maya sighed. “Meanwhile, here we are, with the gold standard,” she threw her arm around Asher’s shoulders. “Our man Choi will just be beside himself by the time you’re a college man yourself.”

With the cheer up choir and Asher off to their first class, the day got off to a fairly optimistic start. Maya was quite proud of her morning lineup this year. She called her mornings and afternoons ‘the heart and the mind.’ The mornings were all of arts, and letters, and creativity… in any number of ways. AP Art History was followed by AP English. The readings would always sort of remind her of the summer in Philadelphia, and really, she thought back on it a lot more fondly than she’d thought she would when they’d first gotten on that plane and left Austin.

Third period meant getting back to both Lucas and Riley, and that was cause for celebration on any day. As far as Lucas and her went, this year was a solid ‘two off, two on’ kind of situation. Two classes apart and two together, in the mornings and again in the afternoons.

Being in French class, it would make them think again about the trip, as much as it would remind them of their plan to brush up on a few other languages in anticipation. Of course, it would help if they had a definitive itinerary, knowing what countries they’d go to, but in all the time they’d been preparing for this, knowing it was so far away, they hadn’t really decided. Now, maybe, finally, they could start figuring that part out. And then they could see about those languages.

It was at this time that they decided, the three of them and Dylan and Rebecca, also in the class, that they should ask Sophie if she wanted to come. She was part of their group after all, and sooner or later she would hear about the trip anyway, so what kind of suggestion would they be making if they didn’t invite her? They actually wanted her to be there, too, and they knew in her case the money aspect wouldn’t be a problem at all. What _might_ have been a problem would be to ensure that they could all go on the same trip, not get stuck behind because they didn’t have the same funds as Sophie did.

But then as soon as Maya told her, while they were all warming up for dance class in fourth, the girl was immediately excited at the prospect of the trip. Just as quickly, she showed enough forethought to realize the difference in their means, and she told them that she would follow their lead, whatever they decided along the way. She had done a lot of travelling, thanks to her mother, so she had loads of ideas to share with them.

The dance class was a lot of fun, and Maya had known from Lucas and Zay that it was not a class you went to for an easy pass or a way to goof off. Their teacher wanted them to devote themselves to making a solid effort, wanted them to learn. Lucas had always said the woman was a great teacher, and Maya quickly got the sense of it in that first class.

She had chosen to go after that class for herself, maybe for something more than to devote herself to it. She had chosen it as a way to spend time with him, which might not have been a choice that everyone would approve of, but then after the year they’d had as juniors, she really felt they’d earned it. And she _would_ devote herself to learn as they went along.

By the time morning was over and they were on their way to the cafeteria, the two of them felt really good about this new year so far. It was just the first day, so they knew it would get tougher as they went, but they kept to the side of optimism as they piled in around their table.

“Oh, what’s this now?” Maya pointed to a band aid peeking out of Lucas’ sleeve.

“That didn’t happen in metalwork, Dash bit me,” he revealed, displaying all ten of his fingers intact and well.

TO BE CONTINUED


	250. Their Choice For the Teams

It hadn’t taken long for them to track down and pull the other ‘legacy’ players to join their table for lunch. There were only three left who weren’t at the table already: Blake Wilczewski and Kenji Yamada for the boys, and Sofia Velazquez for the girls.

They hadn’t jumped right on to the subject of ‘will they/won’t they’ with the players, of course. It was a new day for everyone, new year. Everyone got to talking about their classes, their teachers…

“So, on a scale of one to ten, how scared should the other teams be that Debate has now acquired one Riley Matthews?” Maya inquired of Nadine.

“We haven’t really done anything yet,” Riley cut in.

“No, but I can just see it now. See, she comes off all sort of innocent, like a kitten. But then… then all of a sudden you realize… Kitty’s got claws, and they’re sharp enough to split a hair in two…” Nadine mimed. “It’s going to be great.” Maya opened her mouth to say something, but Nadine didn’t need the question to provide the answer. “I will totally film it.”

“You’re a good egg, Zhu,” Maya smirked. “Even if you’ve abandoned Sofia and I.”

“She did what now?” Sofia looked up, and Maya looked back to Nadine.

“You didn’t tell her yet?” she whispered.

“I was getting to that,” Nadine whispered back before looking to their old teammate. “Sorry, I just really need to focus this year, and…”

“You’re trying out, right?” Maya asked, trying not to sound too desperate about it.

“Wouldn’t have had a choice either way, I’m not about to let you go in there alone,” Sofia shrugged, turning back to her. “So now we just need to find… ten girls.”

“Nine, maybe,” Maya looked back to Sophie. “Or eight…” she tilted her head to Riley.

“No,” Riley shook her head.

“Maybe…” Sophie tried not to sound so nervous about it. Sofia was looking less and less convinced on their chances for the year.

“Hey, no one’s gotten to try out since we were all freshmen, who knows what untapped talent is just sitting out there, waiting for their shot,” Maya pointed around the cafeteria.

“That’s right,” Lucas chimed in with encouragement.

“Well, now that the subject’s gotten itself on the table, it’s as good of a time as any to ask,” Maya looked to the six boys left standing from the old teams. “Are you all in, or are any of you bowing out like Nadine? Beside Lucas, I know he’s trying out.”

“Me too,” Asher put in.

“Same,” Dylan added.

“What, and leave you guys?” Zay chuckled.

“In,” Kenji raised his hand.

“In,” Blake piped in.

“And Scott makes seven,” Riley grinned, looking to her boyfriend, who nodded in confirmation.

“You guys already have more than half your team, that’s not fair,” Maya sighed, sinking into her chair.

“We’re just trying out, there’s no guarantee we’ll make the team. Maybe the new coaches are more demanding. Or maybe they’ll decide to start with a blank slate,” Kenji suggested.

“Well that’s depressing, why’d you have to go and say that?” Zay frowned.

“Sorry,” Kenji just smiled sheepishly.

“Hey, Scott, any of your younger siblings feel like getting bumped up a few grades?” Dylan asked.

“You joke, but they probably would,” Scott replied.

With the matter of the basketball teams – or what remained of them – for the most part settled, conversation reverted back to their first day and the classes they’d had so far. Maya was very curious to hear how choir had gone, this year counting Riley, Nadine, Dylan, and Joey, which might have been as strange a combo as she’d have imagined. She sort of wished she could have joined them, some convenient practice for the TX contingent of TXNY, but then that would have meant not taking dance, and she had been determined on taking that one.

“Some of the others recognized us from the band,” Riley told her, and Maya thought this was a good thing, until Nadine went on.

“Now they have it in their heads that we’ll get all the best parts just because we’re ‘sort of famous on the internet.’”

“Not just on the internet,” Riley mumbled.

“Well, what do they know,” Maya shrugged, short of asking for names. “I know whatever you guys will get will be because you earned it.”

Lucas asked after Scott and his classes. Having had Nathan Shelby as his team’s captain when he’d first gotten on the high school team, he had sort of looked up to him almost as a big brother. And now he found himself starting to look out for Scott in a little brother way, too. It had to be weird, having all his friends around the table be older than him and in whole other classes than him. He looked happy to be able to share now, and he told him about his morning. Lucas heard his anecdotes from certain teachers and realized how some of them would recycle their ‘jokes’ from year to year, which was both weird and a little sweet at the same time.

With lunch period nearly over, they all looked to their afternoon classes, the group separating out once again. Of the ten of them seniors who’d stuck around – Blake and Kenji and Sofia had gone their own way – five of them were bound for algebra, the rest for pre-calculus.

“Doesn’t this just have the makings of a musical gang war?” Rebecca joked, following ‘Team Pre-Calc,’ consisting of Maya, Nadine, Asher, Sophie, and herself.

“Well we’d win, clearly,” Asher decided.

“I don’t know, their people can be a bit… scrappy, remember, kitty with the claws,” Nadine pointed out.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got her,” Maya smiled. Starting out another year here had stopped being nerve wracking so long ago… They’d be back at the bottom of the heap next year though… She really wished it could all stay this way.

TO BE CONTINUED


	251. Their Choice For the Group

As their split group was brought back together for their first of two classes together, Economics, it wasn’t long that they found their seats, locking down the four front seats, window to door, with Maya, Riley, Sophie, and Asher, and then behind them Lucas, Zay, and Nadine, and behind _them_ Joey, Rebecca, and Dylan. As soon as she took her seat, Maya turned to Lucas with a look in her eyes like she wanted to just put her head down and take a quiet nap.

“That bad?” he asked with a sympathetic smile. She made a noise that could have been something like ‘debatable.’

“‘Take AP Physics,’ I told myself, ‘You’re going to college next year, it’ll be good.’ One class and my head feels this big,” she held out her hands wide on either side of her head. Lucas looked at the spread of her ‘big’ head before looking back to her normally and perfectly sized one.

“So, it’s not good?” She made the noise again, joining it to a head tilt. “Then it’s good.”

“It’s… a lot,” she finally declared. “And it’s every day…” she groaned, laying her head down on the books on his desk. “Can I stay here?”

“I have no problem with it. Teacher might have something else to say about it,” he pointed out, reaching his fingers to brush at her temple, making her smile.

“I can make a very good argument why it’s not a problem.”

“How was pre-calc?”

“Numbers and stuff… How was English?” He responded in repeating the noise she’d made before. “But it’s English, how bad could it be?”

“Last minute teacher replacement, and he changed the entire reading list.” She looked up at him like she’d just barely stopped herself from saying a bad word. “Yeah.”

“They can’t do that…”

“But they did.”

“You guys have to talk to the principal or something, they can’t do that to you, it’ll set everyone back, you did the reading over the summer, didn’t you?”

There was not much chance for them to carry on talking, for the time being, as their teacher came along and called them all to attention. Lucas could just tell, looking at the back of her head and at her posture that Maya may have been paying attention, but she was also thinking about his English class situation. He hadn’t had the chance to tell her that he _had_ put in a request to talk to the principal, a bunch of them had, right before coming over to this class. Whether or not they would be heard and allowed to resume with the reading list they’d been preparing for over the summer, he didn’t know.

He did tell her once they got out of class and headed in mass toward their last subject of the day, the old standard, Mr. Matthews’ World History, where the seating would be a copy and paste of Economics except mirrored, as the windows were on the other side. With the way she looked once they got up, she could have been ready to lead some kind of resistance, until he’d told her that they had already set things in motion. Riley jumped in, talking about the class descending on the principal’s office after English class, like she’d never felt so alive.

“What’s your dad going to do after this year, once we’re all gone?” Dylan asked Riley as they all took their seats.

“Honestly, my mom and I are wondering the same thing. She keeps saying how she’s concerned he might follow me to college and teach there. Is that even possible?”

“Well, he followed you from middle school to high school, didn’t he? In three different schools,” Maya pointed out, holding up three fingers.

“True, he did,” Riley frowned. “I said he could just go back to middle school for a couple years. Auggie will be there next year, then _he_ can see what it’s like having your dad for your teacher.”

“Alright there, Sinister, take it easy,” Maya backed away in mock fear.

From the look of it, when he came into the classroom, Mr. Matthews’ students weren’t the only ones thinking about this being their last year together, wondering what the future would bring. He came into the room like he was willing himself to keep it together… and it wasn’t really working. He would look to his daughter, grown as she was getting to be and sitting front and center in his class, and he’d give off the impression of being this close to taking her out of there and telling himself that so long as she didn’t go through this year in this school she would stop growing into an adult already.

Of course, he didn’t, and the class got underway. Being in that class always felt like they were at ease, comfortable and familiar… It was ideal for finishing out the day really, and whatever headaches or frustrations they might have been suffering, they would leave them aside by the end of this class. That was how this first day ended. As they all walked back out into the hall, making for their lockers to drop off and pick up things before they could leave, they felt a bit of the way they’d been feeling before their afternoon classes. They felt the familiarity of their old school… soon to be former.

“Quarter in the jar,” Riley tapped Dylan’s arm when he said it. He just laughed and fished out a quarter from his pocket and handed it to her. “We’re going to need a jar.”

“There’s a bunch of them at my house,” Dylan informed her.

“Good, because we already have like… three dollars and fifty cents worth of dramatic quarters. It’s going to be full by the end of the year, isn’t it?” she sighed, then gasped. “Did that count?”

“Congratulations, Riley, you played yourself,” Maya chuckled, while her friend reached in her own money for another quarter. Until such a time as they could get a jar, she’d been made guardian to the quarters already surrendered from the group. As Nadine pointed out, she would probably be the one most often contributing, so who better?

TO BE CONTINUED


	252. Their Choice For a Day Done

Going to the Orlando house after school, back when she’d first moved here, that had been how she’d really gotten into playing basketball. It was how she had gotten to be friends with all of them. It was as much a part of the nostalgia she felt as the school days themselves.

“What’s this for?” Riley asked when Maya handed her a quarter without saying anything.

“You know what for,” Maya sighed, dropping her bag near the garage door as usual and getting a hold of the ball on the ground. While Dylan went in search of a jar with Riley in tow, Maya called Sophie up to join her in front of the hoop. “Right, want to give this a shot?” she asked, tossing her the ball. Sophie was startled, but she caught the ball, held it with both hands. “Stand there, and just… throw it,” she pointed up. Sophie nodded, tried to position herself, took aim, and then tossed the ball.

It didn’t land through the hoop, but all in all it did bounce off of it, so it could have been worse.

“Right… we can work with that.”

For a solid half hour, Maya, Nadine, Lucas, and Zay all set about ‘Operation Zvolensky,’ coaching Sophie through some basics. The others would lend themselves as pretend opponents when called on. The girl had promised to dedicate herself to the task, to really give it a shot, and she did. By the end of the half hour, it really felt like they were starting to get somewhere, and none were as thrilled about this as Maya was. They just might have found another player for their deeply depleted team…

“What do you think?” she asked her. “If you think you might want to try out, we could keep training you until then. No pressure, really, I’d understand if you didn’t…”

“I’d like that,” Sophie smiled and immediately got a hug for it.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Maya breathed, making the girl laugh.

Now that they’d gotten through the basics, they split in two teams to try at a game. With eleven of them, it was an easy five-to-five, leaving one to keep score, although making those teams, and choosing the one who’d stay to the side...

“Okay, I swear I’m not making another play to get you to join the team,” Maya turned to Riley. “I should point out though that Joey will probably want to be the one keeping score, and that makes five girls and five guys, so…” she shrugged, motioning to the other three girls standing in wait with nods and smiles all around.

“Well…” Riley sighed. “Obviously, we have to crush them,” she declared, and her teammates grabbed hold of her, leaving the guys to come together on their side.

“Hold on, getting traumatic flashbacks over here…” Zay pressed his fingers to his forehead.

“Stick with us, kid, you’re on the winning team,” Maya turned to Sophie, who was already laughing, experiencing these afternoon games for the first time.

Promises were kept, and by the end of the game, Joey had to declare the girls’ team as the winners and the boys humbly defeated.

The group reconvened inside the house, looking through the first day’s assignments already piling up and those unfolding over the near future and the year as a whole. The subject of the English class reading situation came back on the table. The six of them presently affected by this change recounted the day’s class, how they’d sat there with no teacher for ten minutes before, on the verge of walking out, their new teacher had come in, looking like he didn’t want to be there, and that had set the mood for the rest of the period.

“I actually liked the assigned books from before, and you know how I get with assigned reading,” Zay frowned.

There was little for them to do now, they knew, and until the old list was reinstated… hopefully… they could only start on the first of the new list.

In time the group had started to dwindle down, as the friends started to leave off for their respective homes. Lucas offered to walk Maya home, to which she responded, with great relief, that she could never say no to that. Saying goodnight to Dylan, they took off toward the Hunter Hart home.

“Are you busy Friday night?” he asked her.

“Might be working at the diner, still waiting to hear. Why?”

“Capital D Date,” he declared, and she grinned. “Figured we’re due for one… without having to squirrel away clothes and accessories and all that for a week ahead of time. This time I’m coming up to the door, ringing the bell,” he explained, a proud stance in him.

“Now I could get behind that,” she thought with a happy smile. “I can call and get Friday night off just in case… might go and get something new to wear… or raid Sophie’s closet, one or the other. I saw it the first time, and I mean I like clothes as much as the next person, but I actually got a little misty eyed.”

Thinking of it now, thinking of their having a Date like the old days, it really seemed to her like it would be the final piece of the puzzle, a full declaration of things having returned to normal.

Actually, no, there was another…

“You know we haven’t had a sleepover in ages,” she stated as they went on down the street. At the mention of it, he chuckled.

“Where would we have it though? I mean back when we’d have them at your house, your room was still upstairs, and you and Riley and Nadine and Rebecca, whoever was there, you’d stay up there and me and the guys would be in the basement, but now there’s your sisters in your old room and _you’re_ in the basement.”

“True, true,” she nodded, thinking about it. “Well, there’s time to figure it all out. Trying not to abuse the whole Sophie option again, even if she does have a ridiculous amount of space at her disposal… When would we have it though? This weekend or the week after that?”

“We’ll have to ask the others,” Lucas replied.

“We will,” she agreed, a smile blooming on her face at the prospect of a sleepover after so long, and… “Damn it,” she sighed.

“What?” he asked.

“I owe the jar another quarter,” Maya announced, and he smiled, giving her hand a squeeze.

“What are we going to do with – what I’m guessing will be – this small fortune at the end of the year?” he wondered.

“We could…” Maya pondered for a moment. “We could turn it into a work of art… _The Drama of Nostalgia of the Class of 2021,_ ” she called out. He tipped his head.

“Maybe. What else?”

“What else…” she thought again. “We could buy a really, really, really big pizza, so big we can all have whatever toppings we want on our part.”

“We were in art five seconds ago, how did we get here?” he frowned, although right about now the idea of a lot of pizza did sound like a good idea.

“We could just donate it,” she suggested after that. “To like… the dog shelter or something.” Going by his smile, she knew this was his favorite idea so far. He turned to her after that, a pensive look on his face.

“I’m really going to miss the bench…” he told her, and she snorted. Another quarter for the jar… for the dogs.

“You know what I’m going to miss? Those little chocolate cakes in the cafeteria on Fridays.” Another quarter for the pups.

“Basketball games…”

“Mr. Matthews’ class…”

“Picking you up in the morning…”

“Same,” she pressed her head to his shoulder. “Oh, teachers in Halloween costumes!” she called, when she’d thought of another one.

“We’re going to run out of quarters soon,” he pointed out.

By the time he’d gotten her home – and been invited to stay for dinner – they had loads of things to figure out. There was the Date, and the sleepover, the plans for the jar… Even though the season was not starting for a while, and they were still waiting for try outs to even know who would join them on their respective teams, Maya also wanted to start figuring out some designs for new signs for the basketball players. And though she would not be participating as a player anymore, she had also taken Mr. Matthews’ offer to help fill out the empty slots in the Basket Cases and to help coach them whenever she could, so she was on recruiting mode for that.

“You’re going to overwork yourself if you keep this up, won’t you? You have all that, and school, and the diner, and the band, and… well, me…” he told her as they sat outside the house after dinner.

“I know,” she sighed. “I’ll have to figure it out, I will. I do have… this really nice boyfriend guy helping me not get carried away,” she pointed out, tossing him a bit of that ‘irresistible cute face.’

“I will do whatever you want, just keep looking at me like that,” he intoned in a hypnotized sort of drone, making her laugh before leaning to kiss him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	253. Their Peace in PJs

The new school year was three weeks done by the time they’d all managed to find themselves gathered for their first sleepover in a long time. Much as they’d none of them wanted to impose on her, Sophie had been quick to make a convincing pitch for them all to have the night at her house. It hadn’t even been about all the available rooms, or the home theater room, or the many, many food options, or the discovery of the indoor pool that had done it, although it didn’t exactly play against it either. What really got them to agree to it was that, much as she tried to downplay it, they quickly got the impression that Sophie had never had the opportunity to do anything like this before, never had this group of close and genuine friends in her life, and she just wanted the chance to welcome them into her house. So, on Friday after school, the group descended upon the Zvolensky house.

“My goodness, the freckles must be neon tonight,” Maya told their hostess with a grin as they went along and were led up to their rooms. Sophie laughed, giving a shrug of agreement. It was getting to be something of a joke between all of them, initiated off a comment Sophie had made herself, about how the freckles amassed over her arms especially just seemed to be more pronounced the giddier she’d get.

The girls would be set up in Sophie’s room that night, with the boys given the biggest of their guest rooms, once stories of past sleepovers had trickled down and Sophie had gotten to see that the sleeping bags and the shared space surpassed everyone’s getting their own bed. Plus, having their two bases made it much easier to begin plotting a prank or two against ‘the opposition.’

“Ladies,” Maya addressed her ‘troop,’ as they stood in Sophie’s room after changing into their bathing suits, her voice giving off the impression that she now spoke to soldiers on a field. Riley, Nadine, Rebecca, and Sophie all grinned, moving to stand in line. “Those boys will give a strong offense as we sail through that expanse of chlorine, but will we take defeat?”

“No, Miss!” the girls shouted.

“I said, _will we take defeat?_ ” she raised her voice, imagining the boys quaking in their trunks across the hall.

“ _No, Miss!_ ” the girls shouted louder.

“March! March!” Maya opened the door, and the quartet marched, their blond general at their heels. They’d just made it down the stairs when they heard the boys’ door open, and then they scurried to reach the pool first. “What are you waiting for? You scared?” Maya shouted up to the second floor as she went, only to be treated to the sound of those six boys hurrying down the stairs. “Oh, they’re coming, hurry, hurry!” she told the others, giggling.

For a while after that, the possibility that much of the water _in_ the pool might end up _out_ of the pool with all the splashing that happened, was stuck somewhere in all their minds. Then again, the thing that was at the top of their priorities was ‘splash, splash, _splash!_ ’ Before long it had become clear that the girls were well aware of their ace in the hole, primarily that the guys mostly wouldn’t dare try and grab at them, sometimes not even when it was their girlfriend coming at them. By the time they would all have retreated to the home theater room, wrapped in some very snuggly robes provided by Sophie, the boys would still be contesting the girls’ victory, while the five of them would sit there, hoods up and grinning, imitating them and laughing amongst themselves.

In time they would retreat back to their rooms, and the bathing suits would be traded in for pyjamas and the tail end of their evening. Maya volunteered herself to brush out Sophie’s long ginger hair, intent on giving their newest friend ‘the full sleepover treatment.’ The year before, she would probably have flipped out at the thought of someone from one of her new favorite bands braiding her hair, and maybe a part of her still saw it that way deep down, but by now they were all just friends, above all else.

The biggest thing to come out of this session between the five of them, beyond peace and bonding between friends, was the thought to expand the initiative of their ‘puppy jar.’ That was what they’d come to call the jar in which they had been collecting their quarters of high school ending nostalgia, which they had all agreed to donate to the dog shelter at year’s end. They would open the drive to the whole of the senior class, because really it couldn’t be just the ten of them seniors caught up in this mood, and if they could help even more dogs, well… that would be even better.

The next morning, after a copious breakfast cooked up in the Zvolensky’s ‘mega kitchen,’ several of them needed to strike off to attend to chores, or errands, or jobs. Maya stayed behind for a bit, as she and Sophie had to start planning a joint project they needed to do for AP Art History, before she could dash off to her shift at the diner. Finally, sent off with a good hug and many thanks and the promise of at least one more of these sleepovers before graduation, Maya left Sophie’s house. She was almost at the bus stop when her phone rang. Frowning at the unknown number, she answered with a curious hello.

“Yeah, I mean, yes, this is she… Yes, I’m the singer… Yes…” She was hurrying, knowing she was cutting it close to make her bus, but now she slowed to a stop, blinking. “You would?” Several feet ahead of her, she watched her bus roll by, but she just let it go. “I would have to talk to the others, can I get back to you? Yes… Thank you, yes… talk to you later… bye.” She hung up, her face twisting around a mix of emotions, surprise, and excitement, and confusion… Had that just happened?

Nadine would be at the diner… Riley… She had to call Riley.

TO BE CONTINUED


	254. Their Peace in a Break

Riley had been on her way to the mall with her parents when Maya called her, but if over a decade of friendship did anything, it had cultivated an understanding between them in a few well-placed words when plans needed changing. By the time the next bus had come and carried Maya off to the diner, she’d walked through the door to find a very anxious looking Riley Matthews sat at the counter, Nadine and Asher huddled around her, the three of them looking like they thought something terrible had happened to her. Maya barely had time to tell herself maybe she needed to review her messaging urgency before her best friend was squeezing the air out of her.

“What happened, I saw you like an hour ago, what’s wrong?” Riley rattled off, while Nadine and Asher looked on, seeming unsure whether they should be equally concerned or actually laughing.

“Flip the script, right now… also relax the arms, please?” Maya told her.

Riley let her go and she could finally breathe. As they moved to the counter, Maya pulled out her phone and dialled up Smackle on Skype. Thankfully she answered right away, and a moment later they saw she was hanging out with Farkle, so he would be privy to the news just as Asher was, even though it only concerned the four of them within the band.

“Right after I left Sophie’s house, I got a call… not actually sure how they got my cell number…” she trailed off, thinking of this even as she said it, then getting back on track when Riley tapped her arm so she’d continue. She looked up to the TV hanging in the corner of the diner, which happened to be at the right channel. “ _They_ want TXNY to appear on their morning show,” she pointed to the screen, and the three around her all turned to look as one.

“What?” they collectively called out in surprise, startling the patrons sitting around at various tables. Maya looked around, giving as much of a reassuring smile and nod as she could.

“It’s all good,” she promised them, and they slowly got back to their meals as she turned back to her friends. “They want to interview us, and have us perform,” she told them, the emotions she’d had on the street right after getting the call still showing on her face as she shared the news. “I told the woman that I’d get back to her after I talked to you guys.”

To their credit, none of the girls gave an immediate reply; they had to really think about it, about what it would mean for them. Sure, they’d done a whole bunch of shows, and they had this presence on the internet, but this was something else. Maybe it wouldn’t lead to anything and they’d be forgotten as quick as they were known, but maybe… maybe it would mean a turn… a break… taking them from localized popularity to… who knew what…

“I don’t think I’ll be able to go, but say the word and I’ll have a new song for you guys to do on there,” Smackle declared from the screen. Maya looked to Nadine and Riley. She was fairly certain Riley already had one foot on the ‘yes’ side but didn’t dare to say anything until they gave their answers. And Nadine… she’d be most likely to say no, for plenty of valid reasons.

Even Maya could see those. For one, they were all very busy as it was. For her part, she’d already had to excuse herself from helping Mr. Matthews with the new roster of the Basket Cases quiz team, and reduce her hours at the diner, to lighten her load. This didn’t even include basketball yet, although that’d be coming before long. School, her senior year and all the lead up to college, was keeping her pretty busy as it was, and on that she couldn’t do much to reduce much of anything. Family, friends, boyfriend… and the band… they got everything she could give them.

But what would happen if this TV thing tipped the scales?

“I think we should do it,” Nadine spoke after a minute, drawing her bandmates’ eyes.

“You do?” Maya asked, surprised.

“You do?” Riley asked, excited.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen after this year. A lot’s going to change… This band, it was all just sort of this thing between us at first, and then it got bigger, and it keeps getting bigger, and… I love it enough that I can’t see myself letting it go just because everything else is changing, or because we’re finishing here. My grandfather always said to recognize chances worth taking when they came along. I let go of basketball because, as much as I love playing it, I know it’s not going to become my life after high school. But this band… my friends…” she smiled at the three of them, and they smiled back, “Our music… Who knows where it’ll go, but I think we need to find out what _this_ thing will do for us in the long run.”

Now that she’d said her piece, the others took a moment, thinking about what she’d said, looking to each other. It didn’t take very long at all that they knew the answer: they wanted to do it.

“We should probably check with our parents first though…” Nadine went on, and here a wash of doubt ran across her face. Not that her parents were overly strict, but of the three of them she knew as well as they did that hers might be the point where this whole thing could come crashing down.

The next few minutes were spent with the three members of TXNY in the diner stepping to one corner or another so they could call their respective parents and explain about the call, asking if they would let them do it. Maya’s parents had been relatively easy to convince, seeing as they’d already known. The woman from the station had called there first, and that was how she’d gotten her number. After she’d hung up with them, she’d quickly been joined by Riley and a second yes. Now it was down to Nadine, and they stood together, watching her, much as they tried not to come off like they were staring.

When they saw Nadine turn to them with a smile, giving them the thumbs up, Maya felt Riley’s vice grip of a hug once again.

“Woman, let me go,” she wheezed. “I need to breathe to call the station back.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	255. Their Peace in Sharing

As soon as she’d clocked out after her shift, Maya had taken off for the museum. Lucas would be working by now, and she needed to go and tell him, knowing full well that the news would be making its way through the group like wildfire, and she really wanted to get the chance to tell him herself, to share this giddiness with him in person. It had already been hard enough to focus on serving patrons for those hours, all the while half distracted, thinking about what it would be like to be on TV, and now she just wanted to tell him.

She seemed entirely too giddy to meld with the calm spirit of the museum, and if it wasn’t that she was on a first name basis with every single employee in that building by now they would probably have turned her away. Instead, they looked at her with curiosity and just a tiny bit of a silent look that said ‘quiet, remember?’ She inquired as to whether Lucas was in the middle of a tour at the moment, and she was told he should be through in about ten minutes.

It turned out to be closer to fifteen minutes. She spent all those minutes standing at the rack full of pamphlets on the various exhibits and services at the museum, absently straightening up this stack and that one, putting back a few pamphlets in their right place after they’d been carelessly left in the wrong slots. Just when she was this close to losing her last bit of patience, she heard steps coming toward her and turned to find him walking toward her, in that museum blazer and everything.

“Hey, what are you doing here, you okay?” he asked, giving her a small look which she knew to mean ‘I’d kiss you if I wasn’t in guide mode.’

“Do you have a break soon?” she asked in return, and probably for the fact that she looked happy and not at all in distress, he nodded and escorted her to the break room.

“So, are you going to tell me what’s up or are you going to make me sweat?” he smirked.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, not to your poor blazer,” she reached up to dust at his shoulders. They were alone now, so he took up his chance to briefly kiss her. “We’re going to be on TV,” she finally told him, and he blinked. “Not you and me ‘we,’ I mean we the band… TXNY,” she explained.

“You are?” his eyes went wide. “When?”

“Next week,” she smiled, hopping about on her toes.

“Wow…” he laughed, hugging her.

They couldn’t talk very long after that, as he needed to get back for a large tour group that had just come along, but he told her he’d drop by her house after he got off work.

The next few hours, back home, were spent willing herself to focus on her schoolwork, as much as her brain seemed intent on thinking about what other song or songs they might do along with this new song Smackle had promised them (“Everyone likes an exclusive, especially news people,” had been her reasoning.) or about what they would wear, what they might be asked in the interview… No, she had to focus on her work. They had always said they couldn’t let the band get in the way of their studies, and she wasn’t going to break that rule just because they’d been invited on TV.

By the time Lucas arrived she had proudly gotten through her workload and could finally and fully devote herself to thinking about what it would all be like. But then he was there, and she pulled him down into the basement to carry on their interrupted conversation from back at the museum.

“Pretty sure everyone else knows by now,” she told him, showing him the string of texts that she’d been getting since before she’d even made it out of the diner. He laughed, seeing Zay’s initial reaction, which had come in the form of a selfie of his shocked face. “By the way, I’m pretty sure you had something to do with us getting the offer,” she told him, and he blinked.

“I did? How?”

“One of the hosts from the morning show, her daughter was in your group at camp last summer, and she told them all about the singing you guys would do, and the shirts, and then the show on the last day, and then one thing led to another, and here we are,” she gestured with a smile. Lucas thought back for a moment, trying to place which kid this was.

“Soledad’s mom?” he finally pointed back at her, recalling, and Maya nodded, chuckling at his remembering face. “That’s so weird…” he shook his head, his voice sounding more like ‘that’s so amazing.’

“I’m not sure what time we’ll be going on, so you might have left for school already by the time…”

“Lucky for you there’s this thing right here,” he waved his phone around. “I can watch you guys on it,” he told her, and she had to punch him on the arm a little bit.

“Or you can take the tardy and just come with us…” she suggested.

“You just don’t want me to go to metalwork,” he gave with soft accusation, gaining a response in soft denial.

“Who, me?” He nodded; yes, her. “For real though… will you come with us?” she asked, turning a pleading smile on to him.

“Are Zay and Scott going, too? And all the parents?” he asked, wondering aloud, and now that he did, she imagined them all descending on the TV station, and she wondered if it would give off the wrong impression. If they wanted to present themselves as a serious band, maybe they needed to go on their own, no? Lucas held up his phone again, asking without asking, maybe understanding the thoughts running through her head, and she nodded, a little sad. She really wanted him to be there though… “You’re going to be amazing,” he promised, and she smiled, leaning her forehead to his.

TO BE CONTINUED


	256. Their Peace in Secrecy

It was so much of a routine for the three of them, Maya, and Lucas, and Riley, to be the first ones to arrive, the first ones at the bench outside school. Once upon a time, it had been the same thing, replacing a bench for steps, and the routine held. In those months when the ban had forced a change in their routine, even though things couldn’t be exactly the same, they would still be among those very first arrivals. Now everything was back the way they’d once been, and for that the _other_ rule held true. When someone else sat there by their lonesome already waiting, something was on their mind, good or bad or in between.

“What’s the mood this morning, Zhu?” Maya asked as they walked toward Nadine, sitting with her legs pulled in and a textbook open in her lap. “Big test? Home stuff? Guy stuff? Do we need to give young Isaiah a word?”

“If ‘young Isaiah’ needs a word, you know I’ve got that covered,” Nadine smirked before turning a look to Lucas, who gave a quick nod.

“Band stuff, I’ll be over here,” he retreated, tipping a smile to Maya, who mouthed a ‘sorry’ toward him.

“So?” Riley asked Nadine as she closed her textbook.

“I was just thinking about the interview, the morning show.”

“You don’t want to do it anymore?” Maya wondered.

“No, no, I do,” Nadine promised, clearing that thought off the table. “I was thinking,” she restarted, “If we’re going to be on TV, then we should put it out there, yeah? So that people will watch.”

“Okay… Definitely…” Riley nodded, waiting for what the second half of this statement would be, because clearly there had to be something else.

“Look, it was one thing when we were still flying sort of low on the radar in there,” Nadine gestured toward the school. “People know about us, but it’s mostly just us… doing our own thing. The interview, it will change things, suddenly we’re their classmates who are getting noticed, getting attention. And I’m not saying that we’re going to be… doing the talk show circuit, or have magazine covers, world tours… from one day to the next, but I mean… Riley and I are already getting lip in choir now, imagine what it’s going to be like when they know we’re going on TV.”

“Yeah, they do love jumping on anything… juicy like that,” Maya frowned, thinking back to all the mess following the basketball teams’ dissolution a couple years back. Now the three of them sitting on that bench let the silence hang as they considered Nadine’s point. “It’s not like we have a choice though, I mean… We all still want to do the interview, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Riley nodded.

“I do,” Nadine joined in.

“So, whether we like it or not, it’s going to have to get out there, like you said,” she nodded to Nadine. “Better we lead on with the story, oh! We can do a video announcement, like ‘hey, fans and followers, music lovers everywhere, check us out, such day, such time, on the morning show, etc. etc.…’” she intoned, hand gestures and all, making Riley and Nadine laugh.

“So, unless we’re planning to do this right here, right now, we’ve got this whole day of no one knowing except all of us, and then tonight we shoot the announcement video, and then we come back tomorrow, face the madness, arm in arm, TXNY strong,” she gave a firm nod.

“Our secret today,” Riley declared, grabbing Maya’s hand on one side and Nadine’s on the other. “I like it…” she whispered, and they smirked.

“Okay, I need to go talk to those weirdos if we’re keeping the lid on this interview story today before they go and blab about it to the whole school,” Nadine got up to dash toward Zay and Dylan walking toward them. Riley nudged Maya’s shoulder, nodding over to where Lucas was presently standing several feet away, staring up to where a banner was being put up to announce the upcoming tryouts for the returning basketball teams. Maya nudged Riley’s shoulder back in response, and at once the other girl scampered off. Once she was gone, Maya propped up her fingers and gave a whistle that cut across the distance and got Lucas to look back her way.

“I can come back now?” he called out as he walked toward her, and she held out her hands in anticipation until he would get hold of them. She stood, putting her arms around him now.

“Have I mentioned lately how handsome and awesome you are?” she crooned, and he couldn’t have kept from smiling if he tried, which of course he didn’t.

“Almost every day in some way or another, I think, but how’s a guy going to say no to hearing it another time?” he wondered aloud, and she shook her head, grinning.

“He’s not,” she replied.

“Yeah, he’s not,” he concurred, leaning in to kiss her. “So, what’s going on over there?” he asked, nodding to where Nadine was talking to Zay and Dylan, while Riley had gone off accosting Asher, Joey, and Rebecca as they came up, too.

“Oh, Riley and Nadine are telling them not to mention the interview to anyone out here today. We’re going to film a little announcement video this afternoon and put it out there so people know to watch, but until then, it’s very…” she held a finger to her lips, and he mimed the same in return.

“Not a word, got it,” he nodded.

“Handsomely awesome and awesomely handsome,” she gave his shoulders a tap before moving to his side and linking her arm with his, as they moved to join their friends before heading into school for their day of secrecy.

“You guys should mention the puppy jar when you’re having the interview. It’ll get the word out for that, too,” he suggested. Her face lit up at once in the way only a new intriguing idea could light it up.

“I tell you, if I hadn’t _just_ reiterated how much of a quality boyfriend and human you are, I’d be all over it with this one.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	257. Their Peace in Days

That evening, the video had gone live, announcing that TXNY75 would be appearing on the morning show on the following Wednesday, the three girls sitting there amid their instruments and speaking to any and all who would watch their announcement with all the giddiness and ongoing shock of the invitation. They invited their followers near and far to tune in, teasing the performance of a new song for that occasion.

The next morning, as they’d gone on toward school, none of them knew exactly what to expect. Would people have seen the announcement already? Probably. What they’d make of it, now that remained unknown, and while Maya couldn’t say what was going through the others’ heads, she knew _she_ absolutely found it impossible not to stare from face to face, wondering who had seen it, what they were thinking… If there was ever a time where her imagination felt like the tiniest bit of a curse, it would be a time like this.

Lucas, ever the dutiful boyfriend and concerned friend, had been locked into Operation Calm the Blonde from the moment he’d picked her up from her house, finding her waiting for him out on her front steps.

The thing they hadn’t counted on – and really, it was a wonder that they hadn’t spotted that rogue agent from the start – was Mr. Matthews. He had already been waiting for the chance to tell everyone his little girl would be on TV, and, the moment the secret had been let out officially, he hadn’t wasted a moment. They’d all been sitting in their first period classes when the principal had come over the PA system and encouraged the entire student body to support three of their seniors – Riley Matthews, Nadine Zhu, and Maya Hart, also known as three quarters of the band TXNY – and watch their appearance on the morning show.

Maya, sitting in AP Art History, had gone bolt upright in her chair when the principal had started to name them. Lucas, in Metalwork, had very nearly earned himself a trip to the nurse with one less finger. Riley and Nadine, off in Debate, had looked to one another. And then, when their own voices echoed through the halls, their video message played over the PA… Maya sank back into her chair, covering her face with her hand for a moment, even as Sophie nudged at her shoulder with a small laugh of encouragement.

Whoever hadn’t already known that there was such a thing as TXNY until that day, whoever hadn’t known about Maya, and Riley, and Nadine as three students in this school, they certainly knew now, and there really was no knowing how that would be expressed once they made it out into the halls again. They were definitely getting a lot of looks in their present classes.

Over that day and the days to follow, getting them closer and closer to the big day itself, they became very acquainted with their classmates and their response to the announcement. As was to be expected, there were plenty of those who made it their pleasure to inform them that they couldn’t care less about their band and wouldn’t be watching. They didn’t pay them much mind. Then they had those who would either come up to them or call to them in passing that they couldn’t wait to see the interview, hear the new song… Of course, among those they came to find several who _did_ show themselves anxious for the big day, though they made a poor job of hiding the fact that they were just saying it because suddenly they were in the spotlight. Those almost annoyed Maya more than the ones who’d jeer at them.

Still, for all those, they also found many a student at their school, more and more as they distanced themselves from the senior class and toward the freshmen, who were very familiar with the band and somehow had no idea they went to school with three quarters of it every day and now came up to them in an amount of giddy shock that reminded them of the early days of the year before when Sophie had come into their lives. Those were much too fun to put into words…

The weekend had gone by much too fast it seemed. They had all figured this would be as good of a time as any to really put in a lot of prep time for the big day, especially to practice the new song, which Smackle had delivered on to them – and their inboxes – on Friday night. And they _had_ done some of that, yes, got it fairly to a point where it felt comfortable as a performance. But then for however much they had been aware of their respective busy lives and their friends’ busy lives, fitting in this heightened sort of development with the band made it feel as though they were only realizing now just how loaded their schedules were getting to be.

It would have been more of a thing if they hadn’t managed, through all those days, to actually get everything done that needed doing, without having to cut corners anywhere. But then they did get through it all, and so it brought them to Tuesday night, where the trio had themselves a sleepover down in Maya’s room, the better to take off early the next morning for the studio.

“Do you guys know any relaxing things we can do? I don’t think I can go to sleep…” Maya sighed as she looked to her friends, who had packed in on either side of her in the bed instead of pulling in the sleeping bags as usual.

“Oh, good, then it’s not just me…” Nadine let out a breath.

“Do you want a lullaby?” Riley teased.

“That’s not going to get us to sleep,” Maya shook her head.

“Whose foot is that?” Nadine squirmed, trying to find the owner of the cold toes stuck to her leg.

“Why?” Maya teased, poking at her with a chuckle.

“Damn, why are they so cold?” Nadine gave her a scrunched up face.

“I told you, I’m nervous, can’t sleep,” Maya shrugged.

“I could knock you out, that would do the job.”

“Too bad Auggie’s not here, _his_ feet would do the job,” Riley told them both, and all three burst out laughing.

“Alright, alright, come on, focus… sleep… One sheep… two sheep…” Maya breathed.

“Red sheep, blue sheep?” Riley joked.

“Purple,” Nadine put in, and Riley beamed.

“Sleep!” Maya commanded… and they started laughing again. But they did sleep, sooner than the exchange would have indicated, and they dreamed each in their own way of what the next morning would be like.

TO BE CONTINUED


	258. Their Peace in Preparation

The next morning came a lot sooner than any of them would have liked, but then to be certain that they wouldn’t oversleep Maya had set the alarm and cranked the volume up in anticipation. When it blasted through the basement before sunrise, there was a great jumble of shouts, followed by a mighty tumbled heap of bodies on the ground and a chorus of complaints before the trio managed to pry themselves apart and look to one another.

“Anything broken?” Maya asked, flexing wrists and fingers as she imagined some terrible scenario where she couldn’t play because something went wrong so close to their big moment. Her arm still hurt sometimes, since the accident, though she knew it would pass. This morning she sat there holding on to it like she was trying to ward off any potential flare ups. She’d be alright, she’d be able to play.

“I think I’ve got rug burn,” Riley grumbled, rubbing at a red spot on her leg. “I had to pick the edge side…”

“I was on top,” Nadine shrugged.

“You’re welcome,” Maya chuckled, moving to stand. “Come on, we have to get ready.”

They would change at the studio, hair and makeup would be dealt with there, too, so all they really needed to do was grab breakfast and then get in Nadine’s car and go. They would have hoped to get the day off for this, but all they’d been able to negotiate was first period, possibly second, depending on what time they got out of the studio. Interview or no, they would be spending the better part of the day in class.

“What if they make everyone watch,” Riley asked as they rolled on toward the studio.

“If your dad has any say in it, no doubt about it,” Nadine laughed, seeing Riley go small in her seat.

Maya almost laughed solely because she’d caught on to Nadine’s laugh next to her. She’d been busy reading the text she’d just received from Lucas. He had attached a picture of himself in her favorite TXNY shirt (which was to say ‘the shirt she thought looked the best on him’) and his best ‘rocking out to music’ pose.

_Knock ‘em dead, Songbird,_ he’d written, with a burst of heart emojis on the end.

_They don’t stand a chance_ , she replied, with her own rockstariest selfie to match out his own. A second later she set to typing again, begging for him to let her know if any Matthews ‘shenanigans’ came about, or any forced viewership of the sort. He quickly vowed to be her eyes and ears back at school, and she had another chuckle, picturing him sneaking around.

“How’s young Friar this morning?” Nadine asked, bringing Maya back to the reality of the car. As they pulled to a red light, she happily turned her phone for both her bandmates to see the photo he’d sent. Both girls burst out laughing at once.

As it turned out, all three of the ‘band boyfriends’ had made it something of a priority to be up and ready to cheer on their respective girlfriends. Riley showed them the picture Scott had sent, showing him with his cereal bowl, with the television on, all ready for the moment where they’d come on, even though he technically wouldn’t get to watch it then and there, unless he intended to skip class. Still, the sentiment was more than appreciated, and by none more than by Riley.

“I’d cover my ears if I were you,” Nadine told them, handing Maya her phone to do the honors as the light had turned green. Soon Maya found the short video in Nadine’s messages and held up the phone so Riley could see from the back as Zay gave what could at least be called a heartfelt performance if not a particularly in tone performance of one of their songs, with some words changed in order to wish Nadine and the rest of them good luck that day.

“That boy is something else,” Maya shook her head with a smile after they’d all stopped laughing.

“That he is,” Nadine agreed, leaving all three thinking of those boys of theirs.

Maya thought of Lucas, of course, and of her parents back home with her sisters. She thought of others, too, her siblings back in New York, who could not wait to see her, too. She thought of Farkle. She thought of Smackle, who she so wished could have been with them for this. She _would_ be there, sort of. When she’d called back to confirm they would do the interview she had mentioned their last bandmate and asked if there would be a way to include her. Eventually a call had been set up, and so Smackle could at least appear on a screen. How could they pass up talking to the songwriter?

As they pulled into the studio lot, parked, and got out with their bags, they walked on, arm in arm, stopping out before the doors. They looked to one another, deep breaths all around. This was it…

“Whatever happens today, if we rock it or we fall flat on our faces, I love you my musical sisters,” Maya looked to the girls on either side of her, putting an arm around each and pulling them into a hug they gladly melded into. A couple of people walked by them, looking at them with curiosity. “Hi, how’s it going,” Maya nodded at them, still hugging her friends. Eventually, they let go of one another, straightening up, coughing and pretending as though they were totally cool and not freaking out on the inside.

“We go?” Nadine asked.

“We go,” Riley nodded.

“Let’s go,” Maya rounded up. And they walked into the studio.

TO BE CONTINUED


	259. Their Peace in Song

Maya could not have imagined going into this on her own. Walking through the studio doors, knowing what was on the line, feeling her friends’ shoulders bumping into her own was like a reminder… _It’s all of us in this, all of us together_. They were in their last year in high school, heading to college in the fall, they were as close to ‘not kids anymore’ as they could get, but walking into this place that morning, they might as well have been two feet tall.

“Anyone else feeling a little nauseous?” Riley whispered.

“Why’d you have to say it?” Maya whispered back.

“Why are _you_ two freaking out? _I’m_ about to get interviewed by you-know-who,” Nadine added, her own whisper dipping to near inaudible levels on the end. Maya and Riley turned to her, getting a tip of the head in response.

‘You-know-who,’ they _did_ know, was the main host of the morning show, Valerie Liu. The others had not grown up in Texas like Nadine had, so they’d only ever known her as a host, but years back she’d host the cooking segments. Young Nadine had never missed a single one, leading her mother to assume she wanted to learn more about cooking. In truth, Nadine had looked up to her, first for being Chinese like her, and as time had gone on, as her first female crush, leading her to discover her bisexuality. To this day, she could not see the woman without having some reaction, and that was when she was on a screen. Now she was about to meet her in person, sit with her, talk with her…

“Oh, you’re so going off the rails…” Maya shook her head, trying to make her face look more encouraging than her words. Nadine stared at her. “You’ll be fine,” Maya raised her head, meeting her gaze. “I’ll kick or pinch you if I have to.”

“Thanks, Hart,” Nadine took a deep breath as they moved on.

For the time being, they were in the clear, as they were greeted and led to where they could get their hair and makeup done. To their surprise, they came face to face with Nettie, one of the makeup artists from Katy’s theater, who had once helped them at the haunted house. Maya had sort of forgotten that she’d gotten a job here, though she knew her mother had told her about it. The important part now was that Nettie _was_ here, and as soon as they found her, some of the stress they’d been feeling left them at once. Nettie was so proud to see them here, and she would talk on and on, to them, to her coworkers, about Maya back when she’d first met her, and it was crazy to think how long ago that had been. She’d been thirteen then… now she was nearly nineteen.

With hair and makeup done, they’d been able to get changed, take some pictures to share, before being led through to a room where they could sit and wait and warm up before someone would come and get them. This turned out to be the most stressful part. They started out by sitting, but then almost immediately got up again, paced around the room… They couldn’t stand still. If Riley hadn’t managed to get them to join in to their usual warm up song, they might never have gotten focused enough to do it.

“It’s singing on a stage. We’ve done that loads of times. In front of a camera? We’ve done that, too,” Maya told the others as they stood in a near huddle, the pep talk being for herself as much as for them.

“And the interview?” Riley asked.

“Someone just wants to know about us, that’s fine, we can talk about ourselves,” Maya replied.

“Except the someone is… you know…” Nadine’s eyes veered to the muted screen on the wall where they could see the show in progress, including Valerie Liu. “Ow!” she startled when Maya pinched her arm. “Okay maybe not with the pinching,” she frowned, rubbing at her arm.

“Just… think about Zay… Think about your little love puff…” Maya crooned at her.

“I should not have told you our nicknames,” Nadine grumbled, though she gave a nod. Thinking about Zay would have to help… hopefully.

When the door opened and Valerie Liu walked into the room, Maya and Riley barely managed to squeeze in on either side of Nadine to keep her from losing her footing. The woman shook each of their hands, barely aware of the whimper when her hand grasped the hand in the middle and called its owner by her name. She was thrilled to have them on the show, claimed to have listened to all their music on repeat all week. Whether or not that was true, the girls were only happy to smile and thank her.

Walking on to the stage would be another surreal moment. They’d seen this place on screen plenty of times, but now it was real, now they were part of it, too. They were introduced to more faces they’d seen on television, and their hands were constantly grasped by one person or another. They could see their instruments set up in the usual area where they had musical acts perform. _That’ll be us soon!_ Everything was set up, and they were told to take their seats on the couch, as Valerie Liu took her seat.

“Won’t be long now, girls,” she told them, like they didn’t know, but they nodded at her like they were only finding out now. Maya could see the cards in Miss Liu’s hands as she looked over them before they went back on air. That’d be the questions they’d been sent to answer… It had been so funny for them to have to answer them.

In the last few seconds before they were set to start, which had to be coming, going off of the rise in activity around them, Maya turned to her bandmates, reaching for Nadine’s hand, who reached for Riley’s. They all looked to one another. A rallying cry of ‘TXNY!’ happening in silence, telling each of them that they could do this interview, no sweat. By the time they were being made aware that they’d be on air in five seconds, they were sitting as casually yet properly as the occasion called, looking toward the host.

All in all, the interview went off about as well as they could have expected it to go. There were a few shaky moments, though again the strength of numbers meant that, wherever one of them ‘shook,’ there’d be two more there to help with the steadying. They’d been asked about how the band had come together, and that was fairly easy. They had already been led to establish how first Maya and then Riley had moved from New York to Austin, where they had met and befriended Nadine.

They told Valerie Liu now about how Smackle, their fourth and long-distance member and songwriter, had been visiting them in the summer, a little over three years ago, and they’d been at a party where Maya had previously sung on her own. After the other girls had been convinced to join her, that had been their first performance together, and it had led Riley to declare that they should form a band. It had all sort of been a joke at first, but little by little it had become more serious. And then Smackle had started writing songs. And then they’d started performing, and it had all led them to this moment, sitting in this studio.

In the beginning, whenever Miss Liu would turn a question toward Nadine, she’d look ready to clam up and it would just take Maya’s giving a light press, short of a pinch, for her to focus and answer the question. When the subject of Riley’s father, their teacher, came up in conversation, Riley had needed some light pinching of her own, thinking back to the possibility of his showing the interview to the whole school. And then Maya… She’d developed something of a nervous tick since the cast had been removed from her arm, where she would grasp on to it, absently rubbing at the spot which once hurt so much. To her surprise – as it had _not_ been something she’d told anyone about in this process – Valerie Liu had seen this gesture and she’d asked if her arm was still troubling her from the accident she’d had. If thinking of the whole story and having to talk about it hadn’t made her think about Lucas, and think about the picture he’d sent her that morning, she might not have known what to say. But then there he was, in her mind, and she’d found a way to answer briefly.

Valerie Liu had gone on to bring Smackle’s face on the screen behind them, showing their last bandmate sitting back in her room in New York. They’d talked for a little while, and this had led them to commercials, where they were sent to take their places at their instruments, waiting for their moment to perform.

“You okay?” Riley asked quietly as she played about at her guitar. Maya looked up. “The question about your arm,” she explained.

“Fine,” she promised. “You guys ready?” She couldn’t keep thinking about it, that would only distract them and mess everything up.

“Ask my mother, I was born ready,” Nadine declared, making them laugh. “Look,” she nodded behind them, and they turned to see Nettie and the other hair and makeup people had come to watch them perform. “Stages, cameras, this is the easy part.”

She was right. The moment they’d been introduced, the moment the music kicked up, all the nerves melted away, all the awkwardness over old crushes or hyper parents or healed arms was gone. They were in band mode, and that was where they thrived, so that was what they did.

TO BE CONTINUED


	260. Their Reintroduction to the Time

Two weeks following the interview and performance on the morning show, Maya and her bandmates were still feeling the reverberations from that day. They’d seen several shades of those over time, the good here, the bad there, the parts in between and the parts so high that they defied definition.

Where school was concerned, well, it was about as much of a mixed bag as they had already seen in the days preceding the interview. They might have expected some opinions to be swayed, for better or for worse, but they didn’t see themselves walking back into those halls to find they had the entire student body cheering them on all of a sudden, and they didn’t. It was a lot of the same, the naysayers here, the fake fans there, the super fans here, and then the casual fans there… although they did have some new fans afterward, genuine ones, too, and that had been good to see.

From the report of Maya’s eyes and ears on site, they hadn’t played the morning show segment in classes or gathered everyone in the gym to see it, which was something of a relief, although he had seen many a student watching on their phone between periods. And there _had_ been one group viewing, though this one had been expected. Their friends had gathered, huddled around his phone, and they had watched their friends and girlfriends get interviewed by Valerie Liu before performing their two songs, including the brand new one even _they_ hadn’t been allowed to hear until that moment.

By the time the girls had made it back to school – between second and third period – they were back in their day clothes, though their hair and faces still showed signs of their passage through the television studio that morning. Nadine had gone off toward Spanish class, leaving Maya and Riley to head toward French, where they were reunited with Lucas, Dylan, and Rebecca (and some of that mixed bag in the form of their classmates).

“Guys, it’s Maya and Riley from TXNY!” Dylan had greeted them with an exaggerated gasp, grasping Lucas and Rebecca’s shoulders. The girls had laughed, Riley moving to hug Dylan, then Rebecca, while Maya moved to kiss her boyfriend hello.

“Please tell me you kept the outtakes from your message,” she turned a grin up to him.

“How do you even know there were any?” Lucas asked, his arms looped around her waist.

“Because I’ve seen you take selfies before,” she whispered at him before presenting her hands in a ‘gimme’ gesture. He sighed and handed his phone over as they moved into class.

School was school. Their being in a band that was getting some visibility did change some things, but not in any way beyond expectation. They still got lip from some, though once it became clear that none of the three of them were going to waver under the pressure, the pressure started to lessen, as those who’d been applying it went seeking elsewhere for a more pliable target. On the flipside, the super fans, as devoted as they remained, went through a bit of that same journey Sophie had gone through over the previous year, getting to the point where they could understand that Maya and Riley and Nadine were students like any of them under the persona of TXNY. The choir still picked on Riley and Nadine, Mr. Matthews still displayed proud papa status… School was school.

Then there was everywhere else…

It wasn’t as though they had never gotten recognized before, but the number of times it happened had been small enough that they could count it on their own two hands. After the interview though, it was daily, and it surpassed counting. They’d had people ask to get a picture with them, ask for autographs… If this happened at the movie theater with Riley, or at the diner with Maya and Nadine, as any of them was working, it made for some interesting shifts, one way or the other.

It was all still fairly manageable, though as the days had passed it got them all wondering what would happen if it got any bigger than it had gotten. As fun as the idea of it could get, the reality of it was bordering on awkward. Maya only had to recall one encounter, while she’d been out with her family, where she’d been met by some of the more insistent type. After they’d gone, she’d seen the concerned looks on her parents’ faces. Her father had asked if this happened a lot, and she’d shrugged, telling him it was rare, but that it happened at all – and that she hadn’t been telling them about it – made the parental front rear up once again, and she’d been scared for a moment they were going to whip out the roadblocks again and make her quit the band or something. They didn’t, but she was sure it wouldn’t take much for them to suggest they pull back just a bit.

If pulling back was what they saw for her, the band’s then getting invited to a second interview, this time on a local radio show, did a lot more for pushing forward than pulling back. That had been just a few days ago and it had given a second wind to the attention they’d gained through the morning show. On both interviews they had mentioned the puppy jar initiative, and it had gotten them several donations.

Through all this, they still had to navigate the rest of their lives, and with the end of these two weeks they turned to something they had been anticipating for two solid years. In the week to come, they would not be musicians, no. Two of them would be supporting their friends from the stands, while the third, along with those few remaining ‘legacy’ players and a mass of eager hopefuls would be trying out for the first basketball teams their school would see in much too long…

TO BE CONTINUED


	261. Their Reintroduction to the Sport

“I’m just saying, you’re looking to fill the ranks of the girls’ team, most of the students here weren’t here yet when there was still a team and you were on it, maybe if they know you’re going to be trying out, a bunch of them will want to do the same…” Nadine told Maya as they sat on their bench outside school on the morning before the basketball tryouts. Maya tried not to look like she was scoping out ‘potentials’ as they watched other students walk by.

“You’re talking like no one’s going to try out,” Lucas frowned, leaning against the back of the bench.

“A bunch of the juniors have been talking about going for it,” Scott reported from his side, and Maya turned to look at him at once.

“Talk,” she pointed her finger at him. He hesitated, then nodded ahead of them.

“Zach Willis, right there. And I think his brother’s a freshman here, too, not sure if he’s trying out.”

“The boys’ team is practically full up as it is,” Riley shrugged at this, like it didn’t count. “What about the girls?”

“Well, beyond the juniors, Julianne told me she talked to Lizzy. Her sister’s in tenth grade this year and she’s looking to go in for the team.”

“Lizzy Barrett?” Nadine sat up, as both she and Maya smiled, thinking of their former teammate, who’d graduated in the year before last. Scott nodded.

“Oh, I think I’ve met her… Her name’s Aimee, right?” Dylan asked, and again Scott nodded.

“Please, please give me another Barrett,” Maya breathed, pressing her hands together.

It was easier to focus on scoping out other potential players than to think about what would happen when the new teams were announced. They were going along with the assumption that all those of them from the old teams trying out now would make the new teams like it was no sweat, but that wasn’t their mentality at all. No, they had been practicing, all of them. They hadn’t allowed themselves to get soft in the two years they’d had without a team, and the nearer they’d gotten to the return of the teams they had been working that much harder to be ready. When they would go out there they would show exactly why they’d been on the old teams, why they would have continued to be if they’d had the chance.

For all they’d been putting into this, of course, they had no control, did they? They’d seen the new coaches in the halls for a while now, though they hadn’t really gotten any good idea of the kind of people they were, of how they would deal with the legacy players. All eight of them had been stuck with this semi nightmare where the coaches would decide to start with a clean slate and leave them to the side. It could have sounded ridiculous to the others, but to them it was an inescapable possibility.

Lucas might have been the most confident of the eight legacies when it came to their chances, though in this way he couldn’t help but sympathize for Maya, and for Sofia Velazquez, the lone remaining girls who’d be mingled to ten new players. He knew both of them, and Nadine, too, had been left to wonder what it would mean, what kind of roster they’d end up with, and he’d been doing his best to encourage them, reminding them that the talent had to be out there, whether it had been allowed to play until now or not.

After the school day was done they had all reconvened at the Orlando house, their semi-regular games having turned into practice more than anything in the last week. They’d had the smallest of scares when Asher had taken a fall, fearing a replay of Dylan’s being forced to sit out after being injured back in eighth grade. But he’d been alright, walking it off with a couple scrapes before showing them exactly how okay he was by flattening every last one of them in a shoot off.

“So, tomorrow morning,” Lucas asked Maya as he was walking with her toward home when ‘practice’ ended.

“Yes?” she asked back, looking up at him with a smirk.

“Well, our tryouts are in the morning, yours in the afternoon, but still, want to join me for a warm up run?”

“Do you even have to ask?” she nodded at once. “Sucks that we’re not all going to be in there at the same time like we were three years ago.”

“I know,” he agreed. “I still remember the look on everyone’s faces when you pulled that trick shot,” he recalled with pride, making her laugh.

“That was a good one,” she agreed, an inner smile blooming in her as she remembered something else from that day. Shawn had been there, in the stands, a surprise visit… He hadn’t been her father yet, not in any official capacity…

“I’m sure someone will try and film some of it,” he promised her and she nodded. Good. She would do the same. “Oh, there’s the twins from across the street,” he thought aloud all of a sudden.

“The what now?” Maya looked at him, confused.

“You know the family who moved across the street from my house over the summer? They go to our school, tenth grade.” Now that she thought about it, she could see the basketball hoop which had sprouted up over the garage door across the street from him. “They asked me over to play with them the other day, they’re amazing.”

“Oh, sure, rub in your stacked team,” she squinted at him, and he smirked, leaning to whisper at her ear.

“One boy, one girl. Fraternal twins.”

“Tell me everything,” she grasped his arm like she wasn’t scolding him for not telling her sooner, only so that he could tell her about another prospect for the girls’ team.

TO BE CONTINUED


	262. Their Reintroduction to the Boys' Team

Tryout day, for he and Maya both, was to have the unfortunate side effect of preventing the two of them from seeing all that much of each other. They shared four classes this year, in 3rd and 4th and 7th and 8th periods, and those were specifically the periods where the tryouts were to take place, the two morning periods for the guys, the two afternoon periods for the girls. Lucas didn’t know that either of them would have it any easier as far as the sequence went. While he would have his own tryouts taken care of by lunch time, he would then have to wait out the rest of the day to hear about Maya’s, while _she_ would have to wait out three quarters of the day before getting to step into the gym, and he just knew it would drive her mad.

They’d had their warm up run – or warm up race, by the end of it – in the break between second and third period. It was sort of too bad dance class was in fourth and not third period, for her, the warm up only meaning that she’d be showing up to French out of breath and a bit sweaty.

Lucas found Zay, Dylan and Asher waiting for him just outside the gym, and they went in together, quickly finding Blake and Kenji as they stood watching the vast number of boys who’d turned up to try out.

“Woah…” Dylan blinked, the sentiment shared by all the boys’ team legacies.

“Yeah,” Kenji nodded. For once, Lucas was feeling a lot more of the others’ concerns over possibly not making the team.

“There’s Scott,” Zay pointed, as the Shelby boy jogged toward them.

“That’s Zach Willis right there,” he reported, nodding to a tall redheaded boy next to another, slightly shorter redhead who looked exactly like him. “That’ll be his brother, Alexander.”

“That one there, that’s the guy who lives across the street from my house, Kamani,” Lucas spotted the boy and indicated him just as he caught the ball that was tossed his way and spun it on his finger with a gleaming smile.

Before long they were called to attention by the boys’ new coach, who gave instructions on how the tryouts would be conducted. Looking around, Lucas saw no other seniors beyond himself and the other legacies. This wasn’t too much of a surprise, really. Even if they’d tried out back when they’d been freshmen and hadn’t been selected then, three years later and on the tail end of their high school days, they must not have seen much point to it. For Lucas and the others from the old team, it was about so much more.

The coach wasted no time in singling them out, knowing that they’d been part of the last team. He didn’t look like he planned to set them aside, though the boys didn’t take it for granted that it meant they were safe. The coach might choose to take only some of them instead of stacking his new team halfway with seniors. So, they’d just have to show him what they had.

At the same time, Lucas very much wanted to make sure people got to see how good Scott was. Before the teams had been disbanded, he’d been meant to come in and be the new star of the team, and he’d been waiting on that chance for two whole years. Now he was finally getting his chance, and he was every bit the potential star player he had been back in the day.

Of all the boys who’d shown up that day, the real surprise had been the freshman boys. Many of them had given the seniors a run for their money, including Alexander Willis. As much as it could mean trouble for those of them trying to get back on the team, Lucas couldn’t help but be encouraged by this. This team which had nurtured them even when it didn’t exist anymore… it would be in good hands after the last of them had graduated. It could be in good hands before that, too, if he didn’t get picked.

Whatever came of this, Lucas knew that he had given everything he had. If he didn’t make the team, he would know it would not have been because he’d given his spot away. Of all the things to urge him on, and he could just imagine the proud little grin on her face when he’d tell her, it was the thought of Maya that got him going. He imagined her, sitting in those stands, calling out to him with their private call. He thought back to that trick shot of hers from three years ago, and he tried to embody that, showing his own set of skills where he got the chance to do it. He didn’t want to come off as a show off, but if there was ever a time to pull out all the stops, to guarantee he’d get the chance to keep on playing, it was now.

By the time the tryouts were done, with the promise of the list of players being posted by the following week, the boys made for the showers, exhausted and sweat drenched but satisfied with themselves. It was out of their hands now. Soon they would be changed out of their gym clothes and on their way to lunch, ready to eat two or three trays’ worth.

Lucas and the rest of the legacy boys had people waiting for them when they got out of the locker room, primarily Maya, Nadine, Sofia Velazquez, and Riley and Sophie.

“How was it?” Maya asked at once.

“I’m not talking until I have food in me,” Zay declared, starting the lot of them walking toward the cafeteria.

“Someone give the man a granola bar or something, I need details,” Sofia declared.

“We have videos,” Dylan promised, calming the girls’ eagerness until they could be seated around their table.

TO BE CONTINUED


	263. Their Reintroduction to the Girls' Team

Maya knew before it even started that this day would test the boundaries of time, making her feel as though the hours just stretched on… and on… and on… and the basketball tryouts for the girls were just never getting any closer.

By the time she’d ended up in third period, sitting in French class and catching her breath from that warm up run with Lucas, she looked to the seat next to her, where he usually sat, and she just sighed. He was out there now, they all were, all the boys going out for the team, down in the gym. Meanwhile she was here, in class, and all she could picture herself doing all period long was cook up scenarios of one’s extended wait… in French. And then, oh, and then… dance class… She didn’t know whether it was the combination of thinking about basketball tryouts while being in dance class, but she just could not get that one song from High School Musical out of her head the entire time.

Hearing about the boys’ tryouts over lunch had not done all that much to make _her_ wait any easier, and her two afternoon classes, her last two for _that_ day, had been a blur of math and science, leading up to the moment where finally, _finally_ , she was dismissed off to go and change in the locker room and make for the gym. She’d gone with Sophie, who had her own battle with nerves to deal with, and it reminded her of a very similar day three years back.

“When Nadine and I tried out in our freshman year, we were the only ones from our 8th grade team to be there, so we kind of had to stick together,” Maya told her friend. Sophie looked at her, smiling, understanding what she was getting at. She wouldn’t be alone in there. “You going to be okay?” Maya still asked, and Sophie nodded. “Good,” Maya smiled.

“Hey, guys!” Sofia came jogging toward them, another girl trailing behind her. The moment Maya saw her, she knew who she was. “This is Aimee Barrett,” she introduced them to the sophomore girl, who greeted them both with a small wave.

“I hope this doesn’t come off like I’m putting any pressure on you, but if you’re anything like your sister, I cannot wait to have you on the team,” Maya told the girl, who laughed at once.

“Still need to try out, but I think I’m up to the challenge,” Aimee declared, and looking at her Maya just knew this girl recognized her for the band and was excited for it. They got to be pretty good at recognizing ‘the look’ in people’s faces that way.

A lot of girls had turned up for the tryouts, about as many as there had been of boys at the morning’s tryouts, from what Lucas and the others had told them, and no one could have been happier about this than Maya was. For all the talk she’d been giving in the last few weeks, all the eagerness at filling their ranks, now that she saw just how many people were here to take a chance, it made her realize just how much it meant to her, to have this team back, even for just one more year. This other side of her, cultivated since her relocation to Austin, had been forced to go dormant these past two years, but now… now she was reawakening, and she was ready to show the world – or the gym – just who they were dealing with.

As the girls were sent to do one thing and then another by the new coach, Maya looked at them all with a keen eye, observing them as potential teammates. Sofia was as remarkable as she’d always been. Sophie, for having just started to play the sport not so long ago, was getting herself noticed like someone who’d been at it much longer, and Maya couldn’t help but beam like a proud mama about that one.

Then there was Aimee Barrett, and seeing her in action, Maya quickly saw how, while the two sisters had their own styles, they did share a hefty amount of skill. If she wasn’t a shoe in, Maya didn’t know who would be. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, was it? She quickly spotted a few others as time went on. Lucas had pointed out the Avelino twins at lunch, and as he’d also told her that Kamani had been amazing in the morning, Maya was at once in awe of the way Keilani moved on the court. There were some solid freshman girls, too. She didn’t catch all their names, but then anyone doing well could count on having their name called more than once, so while she hadn’t caught their first names, she had a feeling ‘Blackmore’ and ‘Lawrence’ had a good shot.

As she did her part of it, Maya tried not to let herself get in her own head, tried not to wonder if anything from her being in the band and the attention they’d been getting, or having been part of the old team and their somewhat tainted success, would get in the way of her being selected at all. No, she wasn’t going to let herself get in her own head. She was solid out there, always had been, and she was going to be just as solid and show the rest of them what she was capable of.

By the end of the tryouts, the stands had started to fill up a bit, curious onlookers all around. They had run over time, classes were over. When Maya heard the call from somewhere behind her, she just grinned, landing her throw and nodding to herself. Just like old times…

Once they were dismissed, she allowed herself to look out into the stands, finding them all there, her friends, her fellow legacies… Their world was returning…

TO BE CONTINUED


	264. Their Reintroduction to the Wait

Even though they knew it would be days, a whole week, before the lists were out and they knew for sure, it didn’t make the actual wait any easier. The fact that the tryouts had been on a Wednesday, meaning they had the rest of one week, the start of another, and a weekend in between, had not been lost on them, and, if anything, it only made it worse. By Saturday, not even halfway through, if the coaches had been any indication, they were already insufferable.

“My mom says as much as she’ll be proud of me if I make the team again, she can’t hear me going on about that list again,” Zay told the others as they sat around a table at Chubbie’s. “What did she mean by ‘if?’” he pleaded, and Nadine sympathetically patted his arm.

“Just have to stick it out a little while longer,” Asher shrugged.

“That’s so cute, he thinks we’re patient,” Maya chuckled, pointing at him, and he tossed a fry her way with a smirk. She caught it on the fly, ate it and saluted him.

“I didn’t even try out and even _I’m_ stressed,” Riley admitted, her head leaning to Scott’s shoulder.

“Gee, I wonder why,” Lucas joked, making Maya laugh again at his side.

For how much any of them would joke around about it, most of them found it impossible to deny sharing a lot of those feelings. Several of them had been wearing out one or more family member’s nerves with their anticipation for the unveiling of the new teams, but then could they really be blamed? This moment in the whole process was simply a part of it all, a part of all of them getting back into the rhythm of things, and once they added the desire they all had to get back what they’d lost… How could any of them be calm?

They knew it wouldn’t be the same, it just couldn’t. The teams’ dissolution had served to freeze this image in their heads of teams which really wouldn’t have existed in those exact configurations again after that one season. If they’d been allowed to go on there would have been exits and additions at each passing year, and maybe that old team would have been nothing but a distant memory. It might have, but it wasn’t. And so that old team had gained a status almost mythical. Getting back on the teams, even if it wouldn’t be _those_ teams, would be like honoring them in a way.

“Alright, hold that thought for a while?” Maya got up from the table, as Nadine and Riley did the same and the three of them headed up to take their places on the stage. They had a show to give.

The greeting had always been good, here at Chubbie’s, the venue of their very first ‘real’ show as a band, and they’d been that much more welcome following the morning show interview, and then again after the radio. It showed in the way the audience responded to them, too. This wasn’t cursory anymore. These people knew them. Some of them had come here tonight specifically to see them.

Maya made for home with Lucas as her escort after the show was done, that post-performance high still very much in her and sort of contagious, going by the deep smile on her boyfriend’s face as they walked on arm in arm.

“Now, I think… maybe… the lists could be up on Monday morning,” Maya declared.

“What makes you say that?” Lucas asked, curious.

“It would be a great surprise, you know?” she shrugged weakly, then, “Or maybe I just really can’t stand this waiting.”

“Do you know, I think that might be the one,” he pointed back at her.

“Ha,” she gave fake annoyance, holding to it so briefly it hardly counted as she caved into a smile. “You can’t tell me it’s not eating you up inside just a bit. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

“A real nightmare,” he confirmed, and his honesty was accepted.

Reaching her house and the moment of goodbye and good night felt like the reverse of the wait for the lists. It came so fast, too fast, especially with all the energy she had still in her from the show. They ended up sitting on the steps outside her house, where she dared him to name those he believed would make the boys’ team.

“Besides me and the other legacy boys… and Scott…”

“Of course,” she nodded and held up five fingers to indicate five spots.

“The Willis brothers,” he started, and she counted off two fingers. “Kamani Avelino,” he added, and a third finger was counted. After that, he had to think it over, call back the day of the tryouts. “Maybe Johnny Dale… or Timothy Sanders… I don’t know,” he admitted. “What about you, the girls’ team?” he asked, and she held up a finger, digging out a folded piece of paper from her pocket and unfolding it. “You had that already, that’s not fair,” he complained, but she held up her finger to his lips before presenting him with her list.

Obviously, she counted herself, and Sophie and Sofia. There was a small sad face illustration in the corner that looked a lot like Maya herself, hugging a number 58, Nadine’s old number, and he smiled when he saw it. Then there were nine other names, though he could see some of them had been added after others had been scrubbed out or crossed out. Several edits had been made to this list, though now that she presented it he knew this was her definite prediction.

“Aimee Barrett, Keilani Avelino…” he read off. “Margot Covington, Heidi Lawrence, Violet Blackmore…” he went on. Reading on, most of the names would have meant nothing to him if not for having seen the various videos from tryouts and having those girls pointed out to him here and there. “Sounds like a solid lineup… I like it,” he declared, and she beamed, taking back her list, refolding it, hiding it back in her pocket, before letting out a breath. Her list wouldn’t mean much in the end, she knew. It was out of their hands… and the wait was the worst.

TO BE CONTINUED


	265. Their Reintroduction to the List

Maya’s prediction on the arrival of the lists had not been so far off after all. They hadn’t come on Monday, but they had been there bright and early on Tuesday morning. Monday, in the meantime, had been something of an implosion of nerves. Right from the moment they’d shown up as they usually did, to sit on their bench, Maya had left the others behind to hold the bench before dashing into the school, only to return a minute later looking disappointed. No lists. Between each class it would be the same, another trek to the bulletin board, but always there’d be nothing, and by the time she checked it again after last period, she had to resign herself that this would not be the day.

The next morning, when they arrived, the temptation was in her to go again, Lucas could see, but also hesitation, no doubt born of many a disappointment the day before. So, he offered to go in and check it out for her.

“May you be… imbued with all that boyfriend magic,” she declared, sending him off as she and Riley sat on the bench, and he responded with some kind of arm flourish that made them both laugh. “Maybe a little less magic.”

So off he went, hoping and hoping that he would have good news to bring back to her, and whether or not that was actually what did the trick, it didn’t matter. The lists were there. It was still very early, and no one was around, so he couldn’t say how long they’d been there. What mattered right now was getting a look… but then he thought about seeing before she did and he stopped, still not close enough that he could read, and he texted her.

_Get in here now, I am a wizard._

Not half a minute later, he heard some hurried steps, and Maya and Riley came running toward him, slowing to a normal walk before any teacher could reprimand them about running in the halls. Lucas pointed off to the bulletin board, and that look on Maya’s face… the anticipation, the nerves…

“Want me to go first?” he slowly asked, “Or do you want to come along?” Going off the way her face shifted three or four times, he knew a part of her wanted to say yes, but then the other part wanted to send him onward and wait behind. He held out his hand to her, and she let out a breath, giving that hand over in a manner most decisive.

So, on they walked, Lucas and Maya hand in hand, while Riley tagged along, her own hands on her best friend’s shoulders as they went.

Lucas found the boys’ team roster, and to his relief found his own name very quickly. And he found Zay’s, and Dylan’s, Asher’s, and Blake’s and Kenji’s… the legacy boys were secured. And so was Scott Shelby, a legacy in his own right, of the Shelby line. Then there were the others, and Lucas found he had not been so far off after all. There were the Willis brothers, Zach and Alexander, and there was his neighbor, Kamani. The last two were not so much a surprise as far as their being part of the freshman class, so many of them had been phenomenal at tryouts, it was really anyone’s game. In the end, those last two spots went to freshmen Devon Powell and Adil Naaji. There it was… his new team… and Scott was to be their captain. As surprising as the choice might have been to some, he really understood it. Half the team would be graduating by year’s end, and Scott would still be here next year, to carry on.

“Hey, Riley, Scott made captain,” he told the brunette, “Who’s the girls’?” When neither responded for a couple seconds, he looked over, wondering if they’d heard him. Maya was still staring at the list, and he thought for a second she hadn’t made it, but then Riley looked at him with a smile.

“She is,” she informed him, and he looked to Maya before looking to the list. She was right there, at the top… the girls’ team’s captain. He looked back to her, and she looked up to him, tears and a smile on her face, and he swept her up into his arms at once, snapping her out of the shock and making her laugh.

“Maya… that’s amazing…” he gave her a good squeeze of a hug, and she hugged back.

“I know,” she laughed again. She did know, but she couldn’t say it had entirely sunk in just yet.

Captain… She hadn’t even really thought about it, she was just so focused on their even having a team that the possibility hadn’t entered her mind. Now it was here, and she looked to the list with a new sort of perspective. They would look to her… her girls…

Sofia had rounded up the legacy players with her, and Maya couldn’t wait to tell Sophie that she’d made it, too. That made three of them seniors, and looking down the list she quickly realized that there were three of them to each class. Three seniors, Sofia, Sophie, and herself. Three juniors, in the form of Margot Covington, Billie Thompson, and June Meyer-Jones. Three sophomores, the twin Keilani Avelino along with Sasha Riordan and Lizzy Barrett’s little sister Aimee. And three freshmen, Violet Blackmore, Heidi Lawrence, and Tamara Martin. They were her exact list… she’d predicted them all… although she’d imagined Sofia would be the captain…

The others weren’t long to join them. Somehow, the emptiness of the bench had been good enough to telegraph the fact that the lists were up. They would come up, little by little, and they would discover the results, with shock, and excitement… When Sophie found out she’d made the team she cried, and Maya found that happy middle between friend and captain, hugging and congratulating the girl. When Scott came along, they all sort of chuckled, seeing how Riley was having to gather all her self control to let him see the list for himself without simply blurting it out. Once he did know though, she was like a rocket, a one girl mission of congratulations for her boyfriend.

The whole day would be a lot of giddiness and distraction. At lunch, the new captains quickly met and agreed on something that needed to happen. So while they went around, collecting phone numbers from their new teammates, they also passed along an invitation to the Shelby house this afternoon for an informal get together.

TO BE CONTINUED


	266. Their Reintroduction to the Teams

Maya had called home to tell her mother she would be a little late getting back, and when she’d told her exactly what the reason was, she’d had to pull her phone just a bit away from her ear for how loud her mother’s cheerful response had been. She had to smile, feeling her joy for her, even more when she’d paused and told her that her father was just getting home. Soon the home phone had been passed to him, and she had been able to tell him how she had made the team _and_ that she had been named captain. His response had been kinder to her ear, volume wise, but to her heart it was like a roaring fire of warmth, catching the pride in his voice, and the barely contained presence of happy tears. The list might have made her happy, but this, getting to tell her parents… that might have been better.

They’d gone off to the Shelby house, Maya, Lucas, Riley, Scott, and Zay, being driven by Nadine. All of them had the same sort of look about them, like they still couldn’t quite believe it was all real. After two years, they had the teams back, they were back on them… most of them. Riley would continue to be welcome at these gatherings, whether or not she was on the team, and the same would go for Nadine. Even though she had needed to back out this year for academic reason, she was still a legacy.

The players descended upon the house bit by bit. Being of their school, even if the teams hadn’t been there since before some of them even attended it, they were aware of the Shelby line of players throughout the years, and getting invited here was as much a rite of passage as anything. They would pass that wall, with the pictures, and the clippings, the trophies and the banners… It was almost more impressive than the display at school for the entire teams.

Before long, the two teams split off, the girls heading into a corner of the backyard, the boys down in the basement.

Lucas looked around at his team. The vast majority of them were already his friends, teammates of old… Scott had never gotten to be his teammate, and now he finally was, now he was their captain, as well he deserved to be. Then Kamani, even though he was still very new in their world and in his neighborhood, was someone he already knew to some degree. He knew who he was as a player, and as a person. The ones he really needed to get to know were the other four, junior Zach Willis and the three freshman phenoms, Alexander, Adil, and Devon.

As it turned out, the four of them were all close friends, along with the freshman girls on the other team, and hearing about how they’d played together – save for Zach – the year before in middle school made Lucas think of his own group of friends doing the same, and suddenly it really did feel as though they were passing the torch, to this group of friends who just might get the chance to have the high school run, playing basketball, that he and _his_ friends had envisioned for themselves before the unfortunate turn at the start of sophomore year.

In the backyard, Maya looked around at _her_ team. It was a much more different situation for her, with two returning players and ten first timers. It got to feel like the first day in a new school, all of them, trying to figure each other out. They could see it just by how everyone sat, the freshmen here, sophomores there, then the juniors, and the seniors… They were familiar with their classmates, but most everyone else…

Maya felt just the tiniest bit of pressure suddenly, seeing how they all looked to her now. She was their captain. She was to lead them on this season that was to be their triumphant return. What if they did terribly? What if they just lost? And then she thought about the band, and the backlash she and the others had been getting since the interviews. Would anyone think she didn’t deserve the position?

But then they got to talking. And the questions the other girls would ask her, and Sofia, and Nadine sitting there with them, too, had nothing to do with the band and everything to do with their last season, in their freshman year. Once they got to talking about all that, the energy shifted. They all loved the sport, and sharing those stories helped to bind them into this new unit of a team. The sophomores and the juniors, those who’d come into high school with the great hope that they would get to join the team only to find that there was no team left to join, had been waiting for the day where they got to try out as much as the rest of them did, really. They’d been stuck in the same situation all this time, even if they hadn’t known each other all that well.

Seeing how happy they all were to be here, how anxious they were to start playing, Maya couldn’t have felt prouder of her little team, and she was already foreseeing the possibility of another mass sleepover, at her house or Sophie’s, for the twelve of them… fourteen of them… They just had to find the time…

“Now, ladies, a time-honored tradition,” Maya addressed them suddenly, turning a knowing smirk to Sofia, Nadine, and Riley, “When we find ourselves facing off against the boys’ team, we put the fear in them right quick. Are you with me?” she went on, her voice rising along with her as she stood from the ground, spying movement from inside the house. They were coming. And her team, her girls? They were ready for them. They gave a mighty rallying cry and just like that they were born… returned from the ashes…

The game that took place then, team versus team, was by no means an easy one. Each side gave as much as they got, and to see them in action, it really felt like the last two years, the drought, had been put to the side, and they couldn’t wait to get out there and play and have it count.

It was a tie, and they chose to decide it out with a shoot off between the two captains. The shouts of encouragement for Maya and for Scott had to be heard far across the Shelby neighborhood as it went on, neither one of them relenting. They both had plenty to prove, and eventually they decided to leave it as what it was: a tie. The players were more than satisfied.

The whole thing ended with pizza, and it felt like a more informal version of the end of year party. For two years they hadn’t so much been celebrating the end of a season as they’d been maintaining a tradition. This year it would be different, and it started with this day.

Lucas returned home that day with Maya in tow. They both knew their parents would be in ‘explosion of pride’ mode as soon as either of them showed up at home, but then they had homework to do, too, and it was going to be hard enough to focus, so they set out with the mission to help one another stave off distractions, parental or otherwise. Of course, as proud of their son as Tom and Melinda Friar were, they had a special supply of additional pride for the girl he loved, and to find that she’d been made captain on top of everything only meant that the homework plan hit a speed bump.

The compromise was found in inviting Maya’s family over to join them for dinner – as though the pizza hadn’t filled them up already – and granting the two of them some peace and quiet to get their work done before they all sat down together to eat. Getting to see those tottering one-year-old Nellie and Gracie was sure to keep the Friars entertained…

“Is your head spinning a little, too?” Maya asked Lucas as they sat up in his room with their books.

“Literally spinning?” he had to ask, and she chuckled, shaking her head.

“I mean… everything today,” she told him.

“Oh, did something happen today?” he joked, then, “Yeah, kind of. But I’m glad it’s finally passed. Now we can get on to the next part. The actual games, and the practices…”

“The signs, so many signs…” she chimed in.

“Which I will help with,” he told her, and that got him a kiss pressed to his shoulder. “And now I get to call you Captain.”

“I’m not technically _your_ captain,” she reminded him, nonetheless a little warm in the cheeks.

“Yes, you are,” he vowed, and now the kiss was to his lips. For a moment he held to her, and they just kissed on. “We really need to focus, Captain,” he breathed after a while, before it could all go further than it should in that moment.

“Right, yes…” she cleared her throat and they sat up straight, looking back down to their books. “Lowercase date, Friday?” she asked, head still bowed to her textbook.

“Done.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	267. Their Flash of Progress

“Hey, Maya?” her father asked, coming halfway down the steps into the basement and finding her sat on her bed with her laptop open in front of her.

“Yeah?” she looked up at him.

“They were out of the little pumpkin chocolate balls,” he informed her, curling his index with his thumb to illustrate the shape of the candy in question. “I’ll keep an eye out for them though,” he promised her. Her parents had been out with the twins, grabbing the Halloween candy for the trick or treaters, and some costumes for the Nellie and Gracie. There had been some discussion of a family costume for a while, but eventually they had decided against it.

“Thanks,” Maya told him, smiling. He knew how much she liked those little chocolates. He stood there for a moment, looking around.

“Is Lucas here?” he asked, spotting his backpack on the ground.

“Bathroom,” she pointed toward the closed door. He turned to look.

“Hey, Lucas,” he called out.

“Hey, Mr. Hunter,” Lucas called back. Shawn looked back to his daughter, who was typing at her laptop, before climbing back up the stairs.

Maya waited until she heard the door shut – they had to, now that the twins were walking – before scrambling up from her bed and moving to open the bathroom door. He stood there, right on the other side, with a half-spooked sort of look on his face, and she had to bite back a laugh. It would have been less funny if they hadn’t heard the car, or the twins crying, and Shawn had found them in what one might call ‘a state of undress.’ Lucas had barely managed to grab his things and go hide out in the bathroom to get dressed while she did the same out in her room and went to sit on her bed to look as casual as one could.

“You alright?” she finally just had to chuckle. In response, he took her hand and pressed it over his heart so she could feel how fast it was still beating. “Damn…” she laughed again, stretching up on her toes to kiss him. “Breathe, we’re clear,” she promised, pulling him to come and sit with her. “Look, what do you think?” she asked, turning the laptop around so he could see what she’d been looking at, which turned out to be costumes. When he looked at it, something dawned on him all of a sudden. The date…

“Maya…” he looked back at her, and she sighed, nodding.

“I know. Why do you think I asked you to come over?”

Today was October 19th. One year since the accident. It didn’t even seem possible that so much time had gone by, when at a moment’s notice they could feel as though they were right back in that moment.

He moved to put his arms around her right then, and she pulled herself to rest against him, pulling the computer on to her lap. For a while she scrolled through the costume options she’d bookmarked and neither of them said a word. Every so often he would lightly kiss the top of her head, and it would make her feel a flutter of peace.

“So… Spookversary?” he finally broke the silence, his head resting over hers. She gave a low witch’s cackle in response. “Shelby house party?” he asked, and she nodded before turning in his arms until she could look up at him. “Are you guys going to be able to make it though, with the show?”

“It’s just a couple songs, we can make both,” she assured him. “I was thinking, if you come with us, then after we’re done there, we can go back to the party or we can just hang out, go scare Auggie and his friends or something.” He laughed.

“I could go for that,” he agreed. “Scary costumes then?”

“Scary costumes,” she intoned in a voice he recalled from the night of the haunted house… almost three years ago now, when she had been a vampire and he’d been a dead guy with his head chopped off… “Dead things and monsters, maggots and blood…” she intoned.

“Frightful,” he declared and she laughed, resuming the costume search.

Her parents had wanted her to come with them for the candy run, probably thinking just as much about the grim anniversary, but when she’d decided to stay back they hadn’t argued, letting her have some alone time instead. And she’d intended to do just that, simply stay there and relax, try not to think about the accident too much, but after a while it had really felt like her breath was getting uneasy, being on her own, and so she’d called him, and he’d come over, and…

It had been so easy not to think about it all, between school and work and the band and basketball, but then she’d just had to look at the calendar, and then it had all dropped like a boulder in the gut. It wasn’t just the accident anymore, it was the truth they’d discovered, and what it had meant and what it could have meant, and after that she couldn’t be alone.

They found their idea for the costumes after a while and, emerging from the basement, she asked for her father’s keys so they could head out and see if they could find what they needed. She could see the hesitation in his face, in her mother’s face, too. She drove all the time, but somehow the idea of her in a car on that day… In the end, she bypassed any possibility of adding any sort of stress on any of them by suggesting Shawn come with them. Maybe they could find those chocolates on the way. Giving them that way out was something she came to find easier and easier as time went on.

So out they went, Maya in the passenger seat, next to her father, with Lucas in the back, and they went in search of spooky costumes and chocolate balls. On the way, as though the universe wanted to redeem the day for her, one of her songs came on the radio. That was a first, not counting the time they’d been interviewed, to announce the band’s being part of the lineup for the Halloween show. And for that, as Lucas filmed her reaction and she speed texted Riley and Nadine, she sat there, crying and laughing, as her father and her boyfriend bellowed along to the music, cranked loud around them.

TO BE CONTINUED


	268. Their Flash of Spooks

Her mother had helped her, the entire process requiring a few hours and a couple of temporary dye bottles to turn her straightened length of blond hair to the shade of red needed for her costume. It had felt pointless to get her an extra long red wig of fake hair when she had extra long real hair of her own already on her head, so she’d committed to becoming a dark-ish redhead for a little while in order to turn into the sewed up and patched up Sally to Lucas’ skeletal Jack. When the dye had been applied, and rinsed, and her hair had been dried straight, her mother had taken the picture, which Maya had sent on to Lucas.

_What do you think, should I keep it?_ she’d asked with a wink.

His responses had been, in sequence, _‘Woah…’_ and _‘Looks great!’_ and _‘366’_ followed by a heart, which she could interpret as ‘I’ll love you either way, all the time.’ She’d snorted and sent him the same reply in return. She knew she wouldn’t keep her hair that color longer than it would last, but still it was a fun change for that time.

He came over to pick her up from her shift at the diner the next day around lunch time, seeing the change in person now. Her hair was presently piled in the high bun she’d keep whenever on the clock at the diner. He had to reach out and touch it of course, as though it would feel any different. They headed back to her house, where the full transformation could take place.

“What are we going to do with _your_ hair?” she wondered aloud, running her hands through it. His hair couldn’t exactly be called ‘long,’ it still kind of stuck up at a pronounced length. He would get this goofy little smile whenever she’d play in his hair, and that only made her chuckle. “I mean do you know a lot of skeletons with… luscious hair like that?” she asked. Behind her, her mother cleared her throat. “Sorry,” Maya coughed, hands retreating. “But you get what I’m saying.”

“Here,” her mother held up something that looked sort of like a swimming cap, though they guessed it had to be a bald cap from the theater. Katy came up and pushed for Lucas to sit down before working the cap over his head. He made faces as Katy worked, and already Maya was willing herself not to burst out laughing. Once the thing was secured over his head and he was good and bald looking though, she lost it and bent over giggling.

“That bad?” he asked, feeling at his head.

“I’ve seen worse,” Katy had to reply to him, as her daughter was still caught in fits of giggles and trying to breathe. “We’ll blend it with everything, you’ll be a good skeleton man by the end.”

Once Maya could focus again, though an errant little giggle would escape her again now and then, they got to work in doing the paint job that would be required to turn them into their respective characters. Katy and her ‘box of tricks’ came through with makeup to turn Lucas’ fleshy hands into what could have been mistaken for skeletal hands if seen in the right light, and with fake scars that could transform in the threaded parts of Sally for Maya… By the time they were done and it was down to slipping their costumes on, they already looked like Jack and Sally but with different clothes on.

“Ready?” Katy called, standing in the living room with her camera ready, for the moment when they’d both step out in full costume. Maya changed in her parents’ room, Lucas in the upstairs bathroom, and when the two doors opened, they came out and spotted each other and they laughed again, the transformation startling them and making them happy and anxious for this ‘spookversary’ of theirs.

There were several pictures taken of the two of them, together and apart, doing their best imitations of Jack and Sally. At one time, as they were finishing up with the shoot, the twins came teetering in from their nap, and they all just sort of froze there for a moment, wondering how they would react upon seeing their sister and her boyfriend in their Halloween get up. They could all imagine the two of them bursting into tears.

Both of them turned almost at once, and they spotted the pair stood in the living room. Maya crouched to get at their eye level, and maybe the motion was familiar to them, because at once Nellie pointed her little finger at her and cried out “Ya!” and made her big sister laugh. When the two of them had started babbling, started sounding like they were getting close to a ‘mama’ and ‘dada,’ Maya had tried to ensure they would know her name, though in order not to have them turn ‘Maya’ into ‘mama’ she had always put emphasis on the second syllable, repeating ‘Ma _ya_ , Ma _ya_ …’ to them, and thus she had become ‘Ya.’

“Smartypants,” she squinted at the little one, who moved right into her waiting arms. She was very conscientious of her makeup and costume falling prey to toddler hugs and spittle, but if she couldn’t hug her sister, then what was the point?

Gracie, in the meantime, had been standing very quietly where she’d stopped, staring up at Lucas. Of the two of them, he had a better shot of being scary, and of the two girls, Gracie had a better shot of being _scared_. But she stood, and she watched, maybe waiting for the moment where he’d try to get near her to make as good of a run for it as she could.

“You two better get going,” Katy had told them, moving to scoop one and then both of her young daughters into her arms. “Call or text, alright?” she called to her eldest.

“I will,” Maya promised, taking Lucas’ waiting arm as they left for the Shelby party.

TO BE CONTINUED


	269. Their Flash of Fame

It was not the most ideal situation for anyone to be timed when they walked into a party. Half the time they’d be checking the clock, or they would realize they’d gotten caught up in some activity or another and then worry that they’d missed the time where they had to go. Lucas had put a timer on his phone though, and he’d made sure he could feel it vibrate, leaving Maya and her bandmates to enjoy the party while they were there.

By the looks of it, they hadn’t been the only ones to take the route of couple costumes. Riley and Scott had come along in a spot-on Mary Poppins and Bert the chimneysweep, although as accents went, Scott might have won out. And then there’d been Zay and Nadine, for a moment unrecognizable with the masks and cowls helping to turn them into Batman and Catwoman. The moment ‘Batman’ had tried to sound gruff, Zay had just given himself away.

Between their own group of friends and the basketball teams, and their other classmates there that night, the party was bursting with noise and activity and it was wonderful. It was hard not to remember the previous year’s party, so soon after the accident, both of them trying to come off as normal as possible, Maya’s Wonder Woman costume helping to cover the still bandaged cut on her forehead, and the cast on her arm, while he still had his sling. This year was just something else entirely, and they were going to enjoy every part of it, as long as they could.

“Guys, five minutes,” Lucas told the girls as they happened to be together when his phone vibrated. They looked sad to have to leave, but at the same time they were excited for the performance. Riley and Nadine went to let Scott and Zay know that they’d be heading out. As far as the two of them were concerned, the plan was to return to the party after the show. For Maya, and for Lucas, it was still undecided. They might end up back here, too, or they might wander off elsewhere, let their ‘spookversary’ happen as it would.

They packed into Nadine’s car, leaving the Shelby house to head to the park where the concert/Halloween party was happening. They could hear it on the radio as they went. They were well within their time, which was just as well, not wanting to rush, with all the trick-or-treaters running around, or any other costumed partiers.

They reached the park, and once they’d parked, Lucas went off to find a spot where he could watch the show. They knew that, back at the party, Scott would have the radio going so they could hear the band’s performance. The girls went off backstage, where those in charge of everything told them they would be going up after the next act. They stood back there for a while, still thrilling at even being here, then warming up. Finally, they could hear the announcer, one of the hosts they’d met at their interview, as he announced they’d be coming on next. The roar of the audience was almost more than the girls could take, laughing together.

They went up on stage, instruments at the ready. The addition of the costumes was both so strange and so funny. Lucas had said he would take pictures as much as he could, and video, and she could only imagine the look of Mary Poppins on the keyboard, and Catwoman on the drums, and Sally with her guitar.

There really was no saying whether the audience was so lively just because it was Halloween, all the costumes, and possibly more than one drink having gone into them, but they were about as loud as the three of them on stage had yet to see, and they responded in kind, giving what Maya would claim to be easily their best show yet, though it was only four songs long. She had no idea how her hair and makeup were faring with how she could feel sweat forming at her hairline, but she didn’t let it distract her.

When they finished their last song – they’d chosen four of their most ‘party friendly’ songs – they were seen off the stage by the raucous attendees, feeling like they could have gone on for a long time still.

“That was wild…” Maya told Riley and Nadine, shouting over the noise from the stage, and they laughed and nodded along. They piled into a hug, their little band created off of one song at a summer party and a mad little idea.

“Okay, I need to take this thing off for a bit,” Nadine pulled the cowl off her head as they moved to go and find Lucas again. Her jet hair had been put into two neat French braids, and they could plainly see how much she’d sweated in there. Riley’s Mary Poppins bun had become frazzled but generally held up.

“How bad is it?” Maya asked, indicating her face and hair.

“Makeup’s not even running,” Riley told her. “Hair looks like it’s aiming to curl though.” Maya was glad for that; she could deal with curling. It was almost to be expected the moment humidity got at her.

“Are you coming back to the party?” Nadine asked her. Maya looked up ahead, having spotted Lucas waiting for them with three bottles of water, and she smiled. “Right, text later?” Nadine asked, and Maya nodded. “Thanks, Friar,” Nadine told Lucas as she passed by, grabbing one bottle.

“Thanks,” Riley told him, grabbing a second.

Maya reached him now, laughing at how he held the bottles under his arm, so his made up hands didn’t suffer for condensation. She took the last bottle, less concerned for her own hands – she’d already lost some paint at her fingertips from playing the guitar – and more concerned with quenching her thirst.

“Where to?” Lucas asked her. She thought for a moment, shrugged. She knew they’d joked about going to spook Auggie and his friends, but she felt a lot more like hanging out with her boyfriend and enjoying this spookversary. So they hung around the park for a while, listening to the ongoing concert, before wandering off, making off in the general direction of her house, following her bus line.

TO BE CONTINUED


	270. Their Flash of Memories

Lucas woke up the next morning, November 1st, so very glad that this year the anniversary fell on a weekend. For one, he got to sleep in after the previous night’s party and show, as Maya would, back at her house. And for another, maybe more important reason, after the way things had been the year before, over their second anniversary, having to deal with the still fresh ban over their heads, he intended for this year to make up for the previous year’s as well as to celebrate _this_ year’s anniversary.

Jack Skellington’s face and hands had been expelled to the best of his abilities the night before after getting home, though going from the state of his pillow case and what he saw in the mirror… and between his fingers… and around his nails… he knew he’d need a pass at the shower to get the last of it off him before he could go and pick Maya up from her house.

Once he’d been completely ‘de-Jack-ified,’ he set himself to getting dressed for the day. He had a general idea of what he wanted for them that day, though when they’d talked about what they would do for this anniversary, they had set a few guidelines for themselves. For one, both of them would get to choose activities, and for another, they wouldn’t let themselves get buckled down with a schedule. If they did everything they’d thought to do, great. If they only did one thing, that’d be fine, too.

All they wanted was to get to spend time together, and after everything they’d been through in the past year, after they’d gone out of their way to make sure that they’d have the day free, both of them, they would do all they wanted.

As he finished getting ready, he got caught up looking at the pictures stuck over his desk, the few drawings. They had all been cropping up little by little over the past five years, and to look at them, to see the passage of time in them, it just felt sort of… it was beyond words. He looked at the earliest pictures, back when they’d just been getting to know each other, already in love but entirely oblivious to the fact or the significance. They looked so little, clueless…

And then, the more time went on, it was sort of right there in their faces, in how they stood with each other. There was that period where they still didn’t really know or understand, and then the time where they did know, but by fear’s grip, by promises made, they were still not quick ‘them.’ But then they _had_ become them. November 1st 2017… Three years ago… and ever since then the love in them, having finally broken through the surface, just bloomed and grew and glowed off of them. Every day that passed it became more and more true: he loved her with all his heart, and he could not imagine his life without her in it.

“Hey, I’m heading off,” he stopped in to tell his parents, and when his mother saw him, she got that look on her face, that misty-eyed ‘my boy is all grown up’ look, and he quickly ducked out before she could get her hands on him and start to fuss at his hair or his jacket.

Part of him still wished he had a car again, that he could pick her up and take her around like he used to be able to. Then another part actually didn’t mind their going along by the mercy of the bus system. It had a way of slowing things down, letting them enjoy whatever was going on around them, and on a day like this, taking it all in was exactly what they had in mind.

He arrived at the small house, flowers in hand as he’d picked them up from the shop up the street from her home. Shawn opened the door, Gracie balanced in his arm. Lucas thought of how she’d fixed him with that little look the night before, unrecognizable in his costume. Today was a whole other story. She let out a small squeal and a smile, seeing the now very familiar face.

“Hey, Mouse-Mouse,” he grinned, waving his hand at her, the nickname having passed from Maya and on to him before long. Shawn gave him the familiar ‘you want her?’ nod, and Lucas hesitated for a moment, minding the flowers. He passed that arm behind his back, so tiny girl hands wouldn’t be tempted to go grabbing, and he received Gracie Hunter in his free arm as he walked in and Shawn shut the door. “Where’s your sister?” Lucas whispered to the blue eyed brunette. “Huh? Where’s Maya?” he asked. Gracie stared at him, smiling cluelessly.

“What, you brought her flowers and not me?” he heard her ask from behind him, and he smirked, turning around.

He didn’t think there would ever be a time where seeing her would stop making his breath catch sometimes, and today was no exception. They had decided on somewhere halfway between casual and formal, and he was sure that was what she’d done, though to him she looked 100% a stunner. She’d matched her currently red/auburn hair to a sapphire blue dress. It reminded him instantly of the dress she’d worn on their first date, white and blue, the very one which had ended up rain soaked and mud splattered by the end of the somewhat unfortunate night.

“One of these things is yours, guess which?” he countered her joke, making her laugh, coming up to rescue the flowers from his back, allowing him to re-balance the one-year-old in his arms.

“They’re beautiful, thank you,” she beamed, taking in the scent.

“It’s going to sound so cheesy, but they’ll never be as beautiful as you,” he declared, and she snickered.

“It really did… but I’ll take it,” she leaned up to kiss him, minding her little sister in his arms. “I’ll get them in a vase and bring them downstairs, then we’re good to go.” He watched her go off into the kitchen before looking back to Gracie.

“I’m afraid this is where we say goodbye for now, Miss Hunter. Where’s your twin?” he wondered, walking toward the nursery.

TO BE CONTINUED


	271. Their Flash of Hope

Maya woke up on the morning of November 1st still feeling just a bit tired from the day before, but then that was to be expected, between the Halloween party, and then the performance in the park, and then hanging out with Lucas for a while afterward. Even after he’d left she’d been sort of restless. The process of going back from Sally to Maya, washing away everything but the hair color had involved much scrubbing and finally a shower, but even after all that she just couldn’t lie down and sleep. After a while she’d gotten up again and proceeded to clean her room. It hadn’t even been that in need of cleaning – she was very attentive to the cleanliness of her space, thank you very much – but once she was done it really was spotless. By the time she’d properly tired herself out and collapsed back into bed, it was somewhere near three in the morning.

No amount of residual exhaustion could have killed her mood that morning though. Today was the first of November, the day where, three years ago, she’d finally taken the step she should have taken so much sooner, or at least would have wanted to take if not for… issues… Three years ago, that had all changed though, and it would go down as one of the best things to happen in her life, right up there with climbing through Riley Matthews’ window as a kid, moving to Texas (whether or not she’d thought it at the time), and letting Shawn Hunter into her world.

It was a good thing that her change in hair color did not clash with the dress she’d picked for the day. It still kind of startled her whenever she’d see herself in the mirror, like she’d forgotten about it. Her mother had taken over hair bun duty that day. She wanted it to be a lot cleaner than when she’d pile it up on her head on her way in to work. It was really getting to the point where she thought about clearing off something like six inches, maybe a little more, just to make it a bit more manageable again.

Just as her mother had finished with the bun, she’d needed to get back upstairs, leaving her to finish off getting ready. She’d barely finished when she heard the doorbell. She’d gone up there, finding Lucas managing as best he could with Gracie in one arm and a large bouquet of flowers in the other. He looked so at ease, and it all reminded her that this was just who he was, who he’d always been to her. Her life had been chaotic when she’d first come to Austin, and then she’d met him and he just had this effect on her… she always knew she was safe with him.

Once they were able to head out together, they started their day in the only place they could have started. They went for breakfast at Ma Maggie’s.

“Aaaand it’s Christmas,” Maya looked around as they walked in. “They really don’t waste any time, do they?” she asked with a smirk as they took in the disappearance of the Halloween décor – down to special menus – and the arrival of what they referred to as the ‘winter transitional period.’ There may not have been any Santas or other specifically Christmas-y things yet, but there was no fooling anyone. Come November, it was Christmas at Ma Maggie’s.

“Should have brought our antlers,” Lucas shook his head, pulling a giggle out of her. It was a little-known fact that, if you came into the restaurant with a Santa hat you got a free coffee or hot chocolate, and if you had reindeer antlers you got free pancakes or waffles. That only worked once or twice throughout the season or else they’d never make any money, but still it was fun to cash those in every now and then, getting that amused sort of wink in return. There was a variation on this over a number of other periods through the year, like Halloween, and Valentine’s Day, and Easter, and the 4th of July.

Getting to their booth and sitting across from one another, they picked up the newly changed menus and opened them out. Lucas could hardly focus on his own menu, as he couldn’t help but catch her auburn bun tipping from side to side while she inspected the new menu. When she caught him looking, she looked up at him, smiling.

“What?” she asked, and he shrugged. She gave a suspicious look before turning her attention back to the menu. When he kept on watching her, she looked up again, planting her chin in her palm. “Well?” she asked, like she didn’t know exactly why he kept staring at her. “It’s the hair, isn’t it?”

“The hair made me look up, the face kept me looking,” he told her. Her laugh got tripped up in her smile at this.

“My, my, the compliments this morning…”

“I don’t know, I mean if you could hear my thoughts most of the time, it just goes on and on,” he pointed out.

“Yes, well, mine, too,” she promised. “I’m just really bad at actually telling them, aren’t I?”

“You’re not,” he insisted. “You just have other ways. I know how you feel about me.”

“Totally, crazily, head over heels in love? Constantly swooning over… all of this?” she guessed, making a general gesture to indicate his face and body.

“Exactly,” he grinned.

“Here I thought I was being so subtle about it,” she joked.

“Well there’s the drawings, and the paintings, the photos… the songs… That look on your face right now… The way you hold my hand… The way you lay your head on my shoulder or wrap your arms around me… Who even needs words if I have that?” She couldn’t stop smiling as he counted off all of those.

“Alright, we better change subjects before my face matches my hair,” she resettled in her seat, straightening up and grabbing her menu. He nodded, imitating her. As they read through their menus, she reached her hand out across the table, and he took hold of it with his own.

TO BE CONTINUED


	272. Their Flash of Time

They really could have stayed in that booth at Ma Maggie’s all day. They had half a mind to go back and get their antlers and come back for lunch, but in the end, they decided to explore other activities for their anniversary day, what Maya had previously referred to as ‘the font size 20, bold, bright red, capital D Date.’ They found their way over to the movie theater where, thinking back to those early days of getting to know one another and showing her around the town, they did not even buy tickets to see a movie.

They just sat there for a while and looked at that ceiling that sent her mind into such a happy place. They sat there together, staring up at the ceiling, so long that – after a while – some people who saw them sitting there would stop and look up, too, wondering what they were staring at. Most of them just shook their heads and moved on before long. Others would stop and notice, maybe for the first time, the beauty of that ceiling, and they would walk on with a smile not so different from the one on the faces of those two teenagers in fancy dress on that Sunday morning.

If not for their familiarity to the staff – to Riley and Rebecca and Dylan in particular – they would no doubt have been kicked out or made to buy something before they’d finally gotten up and walked back out on to the street.

“Where to?” Lucas asked as they walked hand in hand.

“Well, we’re not about to go to the museum, when you have the day off.”

“There _are_ other museums in the city, you know?” he teased and she stared up at him.

“Ha,” she squinted for a moment. “They’re just not that one, you know? Land of field trips, and weird stuff, and rainy dates, and spiffy blazers that look so very nice on you.”

“They could become special though…” he countered, but she was hard set on the sanctity of Their Museum, and so the thought was abandoned. “Alright then. Follow me, Captain Hart, I know where to go,” he gave her hand a small tug and off they went.

Soon, they sat squarely in the middle of the wide steps leading up to their former middle school, the land of many a conversation, with their friends a lot of the time but just between the two of them just as much, too. Being back here, on this day, and in the middle of their last year of high school, it was such a strange feeling, but a wonderful one, too.

“We met in there,” she smiled, looking behind them at the building.

“We did,” he nodded, looking back to her as she looked back to him. He may not have been able to read her thoughts, but he could read her face plenty. “Pretty sure the doors are locked on the weekends.”

“There has to be _someone_ in there. Teachers doing… teacher things. Janitors…”

“What are you going to tell them? ‘Hey, can you let us in, it’s our anniversary and we met here’?”

“Something like that… Come on, aren’t you even a little curious?”

“Around you, I don’t have a choice,” he smiled, and in the next second she was getting up and climbing up the steps toward the doors. “Maya, wait,” he moved to follow her.

To his surprise and her triumph, the doors weren’t locked. So, in they went, walking as quietly as possible, which soon required her to take off her shoes and carry them in her hands, robbing her of the few extra inches they had previously granted her. It was strange being back here, after three and a half years over in high school. She thought about going back to her old middle school in New York when they’d done a show there, the day she’d run into Sam for the first time. This was different though. She’d only attended the school in New York for a few weeks in the end. She’d gone _here_ for just about two years.

“The principal’s office is definitely going to be locked though,” he whispered as they walked on.

“We can still look though,” she told him, and he could only resign himself to following. Reaching the floor to ceiling windows of the administrative office, they came to a stop and looked in.

It looked just as they remembered it, just as she’d drawn it in the image stuck to the wall above his desk back home. The desk where she’d been standing with her mother, where he’d first seen her, the chairs, where they’d sat, where they’d first spoken to one another, with Zay between them and then on their own. There was no telling if those were the same exact chairs, if they had been swapped around or not, but that wasn’t the important part. This was where they’d started.

“Okay, we should probably go now,” she told him after a minute.

“Now, you think?” he looked back at her.

“Pretty sure I heard someone coming down the other hall, so yeah,” she moved off and he turned around before looking back to her and hurrying after her as quietly as possible.

They made it back out of the middle school, where she slipped her shoes back on, and they moved down the steps, laughing a bit now that they were out of there. Her hand went back in his hand, and they walked without aim again, as they’d done the night before. She would hum music under her breath a lot of the time, he was almost sure, without her realizing it. He had a game to himself where he would try and guess the song she was humming. He would have told her about it but that would have defeated the purpose.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Getting there,” she admitted, then after thinking for a moment, “Tacos?”

“Is that what you want?” She nodded. “Then let’s go.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	273. Their Flash of Love

After a few tacos and a rousing run down of their most recent basketball practices and the first games of the season, they were out and walking once again. They ended up making for the park, sitting in their favorite spot for a while before ending up down at the hoops, where they ran into Keilani and Violet from the girls’ team tossing the ball around. The two girls, who’d been quietly dating since the start of the year, as Maya had discovered in the past few weeks being in the team together, had been on their way to go grab a late lunch from the diner, so Maya borrowed their ball.

“Ready to get schooled?” she turned to Lucas with a smirk.

“In those shoes?” he asked, nodding to her feet. She looked down.

“Good point,” she pointed at him before propping up her fingers and whistling to her retreating teammates. “Vi, can I borrow your sneakers?” she shouted.

Two minutes later, as the girls headed toward the diner once again, Violet was now wearing Maya’s heels along with her workout clothes and Maya, wearing the sneakers with her dress, turned back to Lucas. He had the presence of mind to recognize he had no chance against her even though he did give it a shot. His jacket was tossed to a nearby bench, his sleeves rolled up, and they were off. She was just a dynamo on the court, and when it came down to a one-on-one face off it was even more so. She didn’t have to focus on anyone else but him, and as much as he could say that they both had the advantage of knowing the other as well as they did, she would still out distance him.

“I surrender, Captain, I surrender,” he finally told her, giving a mock bow, which she received with a curtsey, made bolder by her being able to hold to the skirt of her dress as she did so.

When Keilani and Violet returned with their lunch, the shoes were swapped out again, the ball returned to its owner, and Lucas and Maya walked off once again.

They headed back to his house after that, their conversation after leaving the park having led to their wanting to watch a particular movie that he had. They’d both seen it before, together, in fact, but they really wanted to see it again, so that was what they did. On the way, they made a pitstop back at the movie theater, to grab some snacks, say hello to their friends…

“I like being just a bit taller, but at what cost?” Maya sighed with relief as she took off her heels once again, settling in on the couch while Lucas got the DVD in the player.

“You don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to,” he shrugged, sitting with her. In no time, she was leaning against him and he had his arm around her.

“Kind of ruins the effect a bit if I put sneakers with this,” she gestured to her dress, her hair.

“I assure you it doesn’t,” he laughed, pressing a solid kiss to the side of her head and making her smile.

The afternoon turned from one movie into two, as they ate through the snacks they’d grabbed from the theater. The quiet ease of sitting there together made it so much that they almost decided to make their stand, to spend the evening here, popping through a few more movies instead of going anywhere else, but then maybe she could see he’d had something else in mind, because, after the second movie was over, she sat up and looked at him with an expectant look.

“One quick stop at your place on the way,” he told her. She didn’t know what he had in mind with that, but she didn’t argue. They went from his house to hers, finding the place empty. Her parents must have gone with the twins to spend the day at the Matthews’ house.

“So, what are we doing here exactly?” she asked, amused at how they were in _her_ house because _he_ wanted something. When he guided her down to her room in the basement, she gave him a look. “Oh, is that what we’re doing?” she wondered. He didn’t reply, though the briefly vacant look in his eyes told her that wasn’t what he’d been thinking, and now she’d put the idea in his head. Instead, he went on down the steps.

“Sit,” he requested, indicating her desk chair. She sat, while he looked around the floor for a moment. “Did you clean?” he wondered aloud.

“I did, actually,” she laughed. “Couldn’t sleep last night, too much energy. What are you looking for?” she asked, just as he opened her closet door.

“These,” he crouched, grabbing something before moving over to her, and now she saw what he’d wanted and she laughed again. He knelt before her, taking one of her feet, removing the heeled shoe, then repeating the gesture with the other foot before taking the first sneaker and moving to slip it on her bare foot. “Socks,” he realized aloud even as he did this.

“Please,” she smiled. He moved to the drawer where he knew her socks to be, found a pair and returned to slip them on her feet, followed by the sneakers. He stood again, holding out his hands to help her up.

“Better?” he asked. She hopped about from foot to foot.

“So much,” she breathed out.

“Okay, then we can go,” he headed up the steps, waiting for her to join him.

It wasn’t dinner time just yet, especially after all they’d eaten over the span of those two movies, and being home and crossing paths with her dogs gave Maya an idea of where she wanted them to go next, if he wanted it, too. He tipped his head as though to say ‘you lead, I follow.’

They went to the dog shelter, the one that was to get the funds from the puppy jar at the end of the school year. The people there were all too familiar with them now, and for a little while Maya and Lucas spent time with the dogs of the shelter.

“If it wasn’t that I kind of need the money I get from the guide job, sometimes I think I’d rather be here, helping with the dogs,” he admitted as they sat there, playing with a quartet of pups. It was the first she heard of it, but now that he said it she could definitely see it. He wanted to be a vet after all.

“You still could, I mean… even if it’s just an hour here and there.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he smiled as one of the dogs nudged at his hand like he wanted to get scratched.

Dinner came from the food truck parked outside the shelter and they ate it as they walked on, Maya lamenting how every visit made her want to adopt all the dogs she saw. Lucas could only smile, knowing exactly how she felt.

“Someday, we can have many, many dogs,” he vowed, and she looked up at him, a bright grin on her face. “You heard me,” he nodded.

“Alright, alright, Huckleberry, I hear you,” she smiled on.

After they’d finished eating, they stopped at a bench. There, he pulled a small box from his pocket so he could present it to her. When she opened it and saw the small figurine inside, she gasped.

“How did you even…”

“I have my sources,” he shrugged innocently.

“Is that source by any chance a girl about this high, looks a lot like me, goes by Cara?” She’d seen the little thing during her week in New York last summer, while hanging out with her siblings, and she’d mentioned in passing how she’d always wanted one just like it, when she’d been little. “How are you two even talking?” she wondered, baffled.

“Well, long story short, you introduced her to Farkle back there, they both live in New York, they all ran into each other again, contact information was exchanged, he mentioned me, she remembered _you_ mentioning me, she and your brother wanted to have ‘a contact’ in Austin for… surprises… Don’t tell them I told you,” he pleaded, making her stunned smile grow. “Anyway, when we talked that one time, she mentioned the figurine, and… yeah… Guess it wasn’t that short of a story,” he frowned to himself.

“It was fine,” she insisted, then holding the box close to herself, “Thank you.” He leaned in and kissed her and she smiled again, reaching into her bag to pull out a small box of her own. She handed it out to him, and he opened it. It was a flash drive. He looked up at her, momentarily confused. Her smile grew a bit misty. “This is kind of… silly, I just… You know after last year’s anniversary, I was grounded, they took my phone, my computer…”

“Yeah,” he bowed his head.

“Well, they didn’t take my camera. Maybe I thought I was… fighting back… I would record videos to you, like letters. Not my best moments, but it made me feel better, I guess. After I got my stuff back and I wasn’t grounded anymore, I kept doing it sometimes, mostly when I was feeling really down. I’d talk to ‘you’ and I’d feel better. After the ban was lifted, I didn’t really need to do it anymore, I stopped. But I still had the videos.” He looked down to the flash drive. “You don’t have to watch them… Actually, it might be better if you didn’t… The point is I decided to give it to you, the drive, sort of… symbolically. Because whether you’re there with me or not… You make me feel better… give me peace of mind, and that’s more precious than I can even say.”

They kissed again, and he put his arms around her, holding her close for a while. When they eventually let go of one another, he stood and held his hand to her.

“Where to?” she asked, smiling.

“I’m taking you and your fancy dress and your sneakers, and we’re going dancing,” he declared, and she laughed, falling in step with him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	274. Their Problem With Conversation

She was still so in her head when she came home that she shut the door harder than she would have intended. It was Sunday afternoon, and she only realized now that she was supposed to go to work. She was supposed to be there now, not here at home.

“Crap…” she muttered to herself, tugging at her bag as she turned to leave again. She’d need to explain why she was late, she’d have to…

“Maya?” her mother stepped out of the nursery with that look on her face, the one she’d get that meant ‘I just got the twins down for their nap, why are you making so much noise?’

“Sorry… Sorry, I didn’t…” she blinked.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” her mother asked, looking down to her watch.

“I am, so I’m going now, and…” she turned to leave, had her hand on the doorknob, when her mother called for her to stop.

“Maya, what’s wrong?” Why did she have to know like that?

“It’s nothing, I have to go.”

“Hey, wait a minute, okay? I’ll tell your dad to watch the girls and I’ll drive you.” She could have driven herself, but she knew she wasn’t getting out of this. So, she waited, and two minutes later they were driving to the diner.

The ride started silently. Maya looked out the window, her thoughts already in a heap and not looking forward to having to answer her mother’s inquiry. It was going to come whether she liked it or not.

“Just preface this for me here, is it bad? Am I worrying?” her mother finally spoke up. Maya frowned to herself for a moment, trying to figure out what she was getting at. She let out a sigh.

“No worrying, it doesn’t affect you.”

“All of this right here? Worrying,” her mother insisted.

She didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t even want to _think_ about it, really, didn’t want to allow her thoughts to expand around it and make her start to… well, worry. She wished she could just lie, but it was never going to pass, not now. So, she just kept staring out the window and told her the truth.

“We had a fight. Lucas and me… a big one.”

Part of her waited for her mother to latch on to this and declare that they had been right all along to keep him from her or something like that. Seconds stretched on again, but then…

“You guys never really…” her mother spoke softly, and hearing it, Maya felt her confusion shift on to sadness.

“Never,” she declared, eyes welling up. “We’ve never fought like that…” Small disagreements, sure, they happened. But this had been different, this had been loud voices and distance, and storming off, and now that she was looking back at it, she just didn’t know what to do with it. Inside, it felt like she was shaking.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” her mother asked, in that same voice that sounded like a calming back rub. Maya shook her head. “Okay,” her mother replied. “If you change your mind, you know you can.” She nodded. Seconds went by. “You’ll be alright,” her mother promised. “Both of you.”

The rest of the ride went on in silence, as Maya did all she could to keep herself pulled together, so not to appear like she’d been crying when she got to work. As the car pulled up to the curb, it took her a moment to realize her mother was climbing out of the car.

“Where are you going?” Maya asked, hurrying to follow.

“I’m going to explain to your boss how the twins were both sick and you were so good to help me clean everything up before coming down to work your shift, like the great big sister you are.” She was trying to make her daughter smile. It did work, a little, but Maya knew it wouldn’t last long. Her mind would drift away, again, and again…

Her mother’s ‘explanation’ saved her having to explain anything about her being late, and on that Maya could not have been more thankful. If she came off in any way distracted, they might write it off to her having had to deal with this thing with her sisters. She didn’t correct them. The only ones who seemed to doubt her motives were Nadine and Asher. They looked at her like the friends they were, sensing ‘a disturbance.’

She just wanted to be home again, in her room… She needed to be alone, just her, with her sketchbook, a pencil… maybe the dogs… they didn’t ask any questions, they sensed, and they cuddled. She tried to hold on to that image in her head the whole time, letting it color her mood so her clients didn’t think she was ill.

It felt wrong. It just felt wrong. How they even got to this point, yelling at each other… And maybe it felt to her like it had come out of nowhere, but she heard it out of him. She _hadn’t_ been paying attention. If she had, she might have seen it coming and she could have… kept it from happening? Maybe?

When she was finally done with her shift, she slipped out of the diner as soon as possible, before Nadine or Asher could get a hold of her. She arrived back home to find no one was there. She let out a breath, dropping over the length of the couch, grabbing a cushion in her arms.

Every instinct in her bones was to call him. That was what she did when she was upset… usually. Except this time… this time she was upset because of him. And he was upset at her just the same, and… and when she thought about calling him, in this moment, it only made her heart churn. If she couldn’t make herself talk to him, then what would it mean for them?

TO BE CONTINUED


	275. Their Problem With Subjects

He didn’t know what to do. Every part of him said to go after her after she ran off, but he was still so confused and exposed to the things they had both said, and the fact that, for as much as he could want to say that he hadn’t meant any of them, well… he sort of had. He just didn’t want it to come out that way, didn’t want her to feel the way she did when she heard it.

By the time he snapped out of the shock of it all, she was gone, and he was left standing there, like someone had just run him over and he was lying in the street, staring at the sky and feeling the pain come forward. She was gone, and he didn’t know what to do. If he went immediately after her, it would probably make things worse, but then if he _didn’t_ go either…

Not knowing what way to go, the only thing he could think to do was to go home. His parents would be away, at least he thought they would be… He didn’t remember anymore, to be honest. All he could remember, whether he liked it or not, was the fight. The whole thing seemed to have been set to continual repeat, all the things he had said, the things _she_ had said… the shouts… the things he’d felt, and the look on her face… It was all he had left.

He arrived home to find that he was indeed on his own. He climbed up the stairs, only making it halfway before a thought stalled him. If he went in there, he’d just keep seeing things that would make him think about… all of it, him and her, before today, and today… today…

The thought of her was everywhere in this house, years of good things, and he didn’t usually notice it, not like this. But he did notice it here, now. Now, it was all he _could_ notice. He never thought any of it would ever actually give him pain. Except Maya Hart was so deep in his heart that this fight, and its aftermath, all of it, felt like splinters, crawling and spreading, making alterations at every turn. It was a new feeling, and he did not like it at all.

Needing to occupy his mind to some other task, he went into the kitchen and started emptying the shelves of plates, bowls, glasses, and other wares, lining them up to be cleaned, right after he got to cleaning the emptied shelves. His mother had been wanting to do this for a couple of weeks, so he would do it for her and it would be done. He got so caught up in the task that, when his father walked in to find him elbow deep in the soapy water that filled the sink, scrubbing at a plate, he didn’t answer to his summons until his father raised his voice.

“What?” Lucas responded in kind, then, realizing who it was, he breathed out. “I mean what?” he asked at a normal volume. His father looked around, and Lucas looked, too, taking in the progress of his work. “Cleaning,” he shrugged, getting back to his plates.

“Don’t get me wrong, son, I admire this bit of industrious action, but do you want to tell me why you’re standing here on a Sunday afternoon doing the dishes?”

“Mom said…”

“Your mother says she wants help with this, but you and I both know the only thing she really wants from either of us is taking down everything.” That was true. Apparently, no one could clean dishes the way she wanted them to be cleaned… except her. “Want to try again?”

“Not really,” Lucas carried on cleaning despite the ‘warning.’ The last thing he wanted was to tell his father about the fight. His head was still too clouded for him to even think about it by himself, and he wouldn’t try and sort it out with his father, not like this.

“Want to try again?” his father asked slowly, handing him a towel to dry his hands. “We can either play twenty questions or you can just tell me what’s got you like this. Is it school? College coming up? Maya?” He would have liked to be able to say he had a solid poker face, only he really didn’t, at least not in a situation like this. The moment his girlfriend’s name was brought up, he gave himself away by turning his head. “Did you two have a fight or something?” Lucas looked at him. “Ah,” his father nodded. “How bad?”

“Bad,” was all he could say.

“Did you break up?” his father asked, and just the thought of it made him flinch. He shook his head firmly. They hadn’t… had they? She’d stormed off, but that didn’t mean… unless that was what she’d intended? He hadn’t even thought of that, and now that he did, it made him start to eye the sink again. “Okay, hey, alright, look,” his father made him meet his eye again. “If I were you, I’d just let the dust settle for now. You’ll see her tomorrow; you guys can work this out.”

The fight still played over in his head. He wanted to believe that his father was right, but then his father hadn’t been there, he hadn’t heard what they’d said, both of them. He wasn’t going to tell him either.

“Can I, uh… can I go and spend the night at Zay’s?” he asked. If having to talk to his father sounded like a bad idea, having to face his mother and _her_ curiosity was as inadvisable as it got.

“So long as you’re in school in the morning, on time, then it’s fine by me.”

Lucas went up the stairs to pack his things, sending off a text to Zay, who took his friend’s coming over in stride. When he stepped into his room, something he hadn’t been willing to do earlier, he had to take a breath, which was almost worse. She’d been here, just yesterday, and he could still catch her scent on the air. His father was convinced this would all work itself out. Lucas wanted to be as confident as him, but the shouts in his head got in the way.

TO BE CONTINUED


	276. Their Problem With Silence

The next morning, Monday, Maya woke up from a night she would have thought for sure would be riddled with nightmares but instead turned out to be a dreamless one. It was a little while more before she realized it _was_ a school day, and as she sat up in her bed, rubbing sleep from her eyes, the one thought that seemed to persist in running through her mind was ‘what happens now?’

Would he still come for her? Did she want him to?

She got up and started getting ready, almost on reflex alone. As she got dressed, she found herself staring at a frame on her wall. One of his Christmas presents to her, not one month ago. Zay, Scott, and Farkle had each made one, for their respective girlfriends, a collective project between the four of them, completed and distributed with such pride, it had made the girls laugh.

They had taken one of the TXNY albums, mounting it on a plain background, with the cover near the top and the CD itself near the bottom, with a neat, golden rectangle in between, an engraving marking this album, made by the girls in every way, as ‘the beginning.’

Would it be irony that ‘the beginning’ might have led to an ending?

She was just pulling her long hair into a clean ponytail when she heard the doorbell from above. Her hands froze, mid-tightening, eyes turning upward. She waited a few seconds, hearing footsteps nearing the basement door.

“Maya, Lucas is here,” her mother called down.

She let out a breath. She didn’t know how she expected to feel at this news. It should have been relief, elation, but right now it felt more like uncertainty… apprehension. Was it too late to feign illness?

When she got up the stairs, her mother had wrapped her toast in a paper towel for her. Her father was walking around with Nellie perched in his arms… staring at the boy idling just inside the door. Lucas looked up when she came through, and their eyes locked together for a moment. It was the first time they saw each other since the fight, of course, seeing as it had happened just a day before, but it felt like so much longer right then.

Neither of them seemed to know how to feel, or act. Neither of them felt the easy smile that usually came upon seeing one another.

“Have a good day at school,” her father turned a more peaceful look to her. She nodded, to him, to her mother, before following Lucas out the door.

They started up the street, quiet. For a while, she had her breakfast to turn to as an excuse for her silence, but she knew it wouldn’t last, no matter how small she made her bites. She hated this. She hated feeling like this right now, but no matter how hard she tried to push the feeling aside, it wouldn’t budge. Whenever she tried, she remembered the sound of his voice, yelling… the exasperation, the pent-up feelings spilling out. She remembered how it had made her feel, whether or not she could put it into words.

So, she didn’t speak. They walked, and that was all.

This lasted until they were nearing Riley’s house and she reached to his arm to stop him. He turned to her… Was that hope in his face or hesitation?

“I haven’t told her. I haven’t told any of them,” she spoke quietly. “Can we not… I don’t want to…” she shook her head.

“I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to,” he told her. He sounded so far away in his head. They stood there for a moment, both of them looking anywhere but at each other, and then they started walking again toward the Matthews house.

Lucas kept hearing his father’s words in his head. Were they broken up? Was that what she meant when she said she hadn’t told anyone? Or were they still together, just… conflicted? He couldn’t even ask her, could he? If he did, she might think that was what he wanted, when it wasn’t… was it? No… no… that wasn’t…

He wanted to say something, he wanted them to fix this, somehow, but whenever he thought about that, he would also remember that moment, the day before, when the fight had begun, the shock, the strike of words, the look in her eyes that had made him want to take back what he’d said just as soon as he’d said it. He might have managed it, too, but then she’d pushed, she’d insisted, and then the rest had come spilling out, and then… then there’d been no coming back.

This moment, walking together on a Monday morning, was supposed to be filled with conversation. It wasn’t as though they didn’t see each other on weekends, but generally speaking it was the time of the week where they saw the least of each other, which meant that Monday mornings were full of anecdotes, of stories about their respective jobs, or family events, each of them bringing something that would make the other laugh as they went, hand in hand.

There were no stories this morning, and both their hands were kept firmly to themselves. By the time they made it to Riley’s house and the girl came out to join them, it didn’t matter what she had or hadn’t been told. She took one look at her two friends and her face fell.

“What happened?” she asked, looking from one to the other. “Was someone hurt?” She was reaching to pull out her phone like she would look at the screen and see a whole chain of missed texts or calls that would show that she’d missed whatever was making them look this way.

“No, no, Riley, it’s fine,” Maya promised her, showing more instant vigor right then than she had since they had left her house.

“Then what is it?” Riley asked, looking at them again. “What’s wrong?” Maya looked to Lucas. He looked back at her. _I wish I knew…_

TO BE CONTINUED


	277. Their Problem With Friends

The rest of the journey to school hadn’t been any better after they’d picked up Riley. Lucas would come upon moments, every once in a while, where he would be reminded of the fact that, though Maya herself would refer to him as her best friend (from Texas), she’d had another best friend for several years before the two of them had ever met. In those moments, Riley would go and respond to a situation in a way that spoke of this extended bond the two of them had, reminding him that he didn’t know Maya as well as Riley did.

It didn’t usually do anything to him, but on that morning, it was different. On that morning, Riley could sense that something was going on between the two of them, and she had moved right into best friend mode, the first, the original. Her best friend was hurting, and she was going to back her up, something that seemed to involve giving him some solid stink eye. What had he said, what had he done, to make her Peaches hurt like that?

He hadn’t gone on ahead without them, but when they sort of pulled ahead of him a few feet he didn’t do anything to catch up to them either. Maybe Maya needed space… maybe he did, too.

Was that what he was going to do now? Be angry at her for being distant after… after all that?

He wanted to say something, he knew that sooner or later they were going to have to talk about it. But they hadn’t, not yet, and however this played out he couldn’t see himself saying anything about the fight when they were on their way in to school. It could all end up as a rehash of the day before, and neither of them would get anything done all day. So, he held his tongue and they kept on going, him silent, Maya mostly silent, sometimes meeting Riley’s whispers.

When they arrived at school, they were met by a new hurdle. They were usually the first ones there, sometimes there would be one of their friends arriving ahead of time, two at the most. But this morning, as they approached, they saw that already several of them had arrived. Zay, Asher, Dylan, and Nadine, they were all at the bench, talking amongst themselves, and Lucas didn’t know how he knew but he knew they were talking about them.

How? Had she told them? He hadn’t told Zay anything last night or this morning. And she’d asked him not to tell Riley, so why would she have told any of the others before her childhood best friend?

No. He got his answer when Maya came to a stop all of a sudden at the sight of them, like she was just as surprised as he was. She actually turned back to look at him. Was she asking if he’d told any of them? He shook his head, shrugging. Then there was realization on her face, eyes closing. He connected the dots right after her. She was supposed to work at the diner yesterday, wasn’t she? Right after they…

“I need to go see if the coach is in yet, okay?” Maya told Riley before moving off toward the school.

“Okay, sure, do you…” Riley asked, but she was already gone. In the next moment, the brunette turned on him. “What happened?” she asked, and he blinked.

“I think I forgot my book for English in my locker,” he shook his head, leaving her there, too, going for the school.

He was mostly sure Maya’s story was as made up as the one _he’d_ given to Riley, but she was completely out of sight by the time he got into the building. Trying not to have this conversation with their friends right now was only going to work for so long, he realized, but it was the best he could do. Whatever was going to come of this fight, right now, he didn’t want to… He couldn’t…

He was afraid he might get to a point where the feel of the fight was all he had left.

The avoidance game was only going to get them so far. First period had been one thing. The only one of his friends to be in metal work with him was Dylan, and on that he could be the tiniest bit secured that if he didn’t want to talk, he wouldn’t be made to talk, though he could feel his friend’s eyes on him, like Dylan was sure Lucas would accidentally cut himself for being so distracted.

Second period had been more complicated. Second period meant that he and Dylan were joined by Riley, and Zay, and Nadine… Joey and Rebecca were there, too, but much like Dylan they were not the type to pry. But the other three… The moment he showed up to class and found them there, they were staring at him like they had a whole load of questions for him but didn’t know whether or not they could actually ask any of them. He didn’t give them the occasion to try.

The next two periods were going to be harder: Maya would be there. First French, then dance? There was no way they’d get through that without their friends figuring out what was happening. The way they acted around each other, there was no doubt. They were in a fight.

Then lunch came around, and they were all going to be at a table together, there would be nothing to get in the way of conversation, between the two of them, between them and their friends… He wasn’t going to go and sit in a corner to eat on his own, but was she? When he saw her coming up to their table with Riley and Nadine, he took a breath. They ended up sitting across from one another, not side by side as usual.

“Right, I’m just going to bite the bullet right here, because the silence is going to give me stress acne,” Zay finally spoke, looking from one to the other. The rest of the group didn’t say anything yet, all of them looking curious, yes, but not willing to be the ones to speak up. “Did you two break up or what?”

His head did something like a jerk up at the sound of the words, followed immediately by a lowering back down, not knowing whether he would look too eager otherwise, but in that split second where his eyes had been up, they’d met hers. She’d looked up, too, so he raised his head back up again, looking at her. She was looking at him, she looked… unsure?

“We… N-no… No,” she shook her head, and he couldn’t help his eyes widening before looking down to his plate. They hadn’t broken up. She hadn’t broken up with him… they were still… they were… They were still together, but they were not okay… they really weren’t okay at all.

TO BE CONTINUED


	278. Their Problem With Regrets

By the end of the day, Lucas just needed to get home, to get away from people, and eyes, and questions… His head felt heavy and too crowded for him to manage to sort it out. All day long, he’d been walking around with the confusion, the stress, the fear, the anger… and nothing was changing. At the end of the day, nothing felt better, only worse. They weren’t broken up, that was one thing, but there was still this cold between them…

He had to talk to her. He knew that if he had any hopes of the two of them working this all out, to find their way back to normal, to as close to normal as they were ever going to get, they were going to have to talk. But whenever he imagined their trying to talk, all he ever saw in the end was more of what had happened the day before.

What he came to realize in that moment, as he said those words that started them on the path of their fight, was that he hadn’t known… He hadn’t known the levels his unspoken discomfort had been reaching without his seeing them. It had been building up inside him, little by little, until one unintentional tremor had split a crack in him and everything… everything had come spewing out like so much lava.

He never wanted to be ‘that guy,’ and as a whole he still wasn’t. He didn’t want to be the guy who tried to get in the way of something that made his girlfriend happy, and he hadn’t been. Everything she’d wanted to do, needed to do, that had to do with the band and this unexpected rise to local/more than local fame, he had supported, and he had assisted in, every step of the way and in any manner he could.

But in the whole of that whirlwind, with everything else happening these days, too, with senior year, and basketball teams, and work, and life overall… he had started to feel just a bit… abandoned? No, that wasn’t the word, although he might have said it at some point the afternoon before. Forgotten? Taken for granted?

When he had just sort of suggested that this was the case, she had been so dismissive of the idea, that was when the crack had started to creep up. Before he knew it he was listing out instance after instance, times when they had done nothing but ‘band stuff,’ times when they had been supposed to do one thing but ended up doing more band stuff instead, or she had backed out at the last minute, promising they would find another time, but…

Each of those examples had been received with something like disbelief that he would blame her for any of it, which would turn to his pointing out he was merely making examples. One way or the other, it only seemed to prove what he was trying to get at, and the deeper he would go, the more it would make him realize just how frustrated he’d been growing.

He couldn’t say at what point the yelling had started, or what had triggered it, but by that point none of what they were saying felt like it made sense anymore. And finally… finally, she’d declared that she couldn’t keep doing this, that she had to get to the diner, and then she’d left him standing there, in the middle of her mother’s theater, where they’d gone to practice for dance class before the conversation had turned to the band.

He only just remembered getting home after that, still just dazed, his heart thumping with everything he was still feeling, but then as he’d started to recover something of himself it had all felt like it should have been a bad dream, not real. That wasn’t them, was it? That had never been them, that couldn’t… That wasn’t her, and it wasn’t him, no… It couldn’t…

Except he hadn’t lied, had he? Everything he’d told her the day before… yelled… It had been building up in him without his seeing it, and now it was out and he couldn’t take it back any more than _she_ could unhear it.

It was all just a mess. He didn’t know how to fix it.

On the one hand, there was the part of him that had been this same, understanding, easygoing guy, enabling whatever turn came next, backing up this simply unexpected rise, this great big musical dream of hers, and the thought of ever getting in the way of that would be unthinkable.

But on the other hand, there’d be that same guy, only on the other side he would be finding himself missing his girlfriend and seeing how the scales had tipped and how things had changed. They weren’t the same anymore, and after how long they’d fought, just to have the chance to be together again after that year of hell… what did it mean that time and time again he would be left with the impression that she’d forgotten him, that he had turned into… an afterthought?

It wasn’t a good feeling, not in the slightest. And it might have been one thing if she’d seen it, too, if she’d acknowledged it in the slightest. But she hadn’t. Over and over, all she’d had to give in return was denial. And the more she’d shake her head, the more his upset would build, and expand, getting out of control.

Did that mean they would never get past this? He never wanted to see this as a possibility. He loved her… he loved her so much, more than words could say, but what if they got to a point where it wasn’t enough anymore?

He didn’t know what to do… He didn’t know… Should he go to her now? No, maybe not. Maybe the best he could do would be to let this day pass. Tomorrow… Tomorrow, maybe they could try again, maybe the passage of time would make things clearer, for each of them.

TO BE CONTINUED


	279. Their Problem With Wrongs

Riley and Nadine had not left her side as they left school that afternoon, and much as a great part of her just wanted to be alone, she knew it wasn’t going to happen, not if those two had anything to say about it. They could see she was all turmoil and no clarity, and they weren’t going to leave her caught up like that. She could not have asked for better bandmates.

But she didn’t really want to go and talk about the fight, not like this. They would either take her side, ardently laying blame all over Lucas, or they would see his side of it and make her feel worse and more… rotten than she already did.

So, they went to Riley’s, where their instruments would be waiting in the basement. They had spent a lot of the Christmas break working to sound proof the place, for Riley’s family’s benefit, and her neighbors’, too.

“You guys want to run through the new song a couple times?” she asked them, picking up her guitar. They looked to each other for a moment before giving quiet agreements. “Great, let’s go.”

Once they were in it, once they’d started playing, singing, she could feel herself relaxing just a bit, settling into the easy mindset she’d get when she was performing. Everything else would just fade away, she could be at peace, she…

Her hands felt clumsy. The notes were not coming right, it was all just… discord… She couldn’t remember the words. She stopped, standing there for a few seconds, breathing hard, staring fixedly at a small sticker on the side of the instrument, right where she could see it whenever she looked down while playing. She could only see the moment play back in her head, when he had found it, and they’d chuckled, and he’d stuck it there on her guitar. She’d smiled… He would be there with her on stage, their secret.

But now she kept thinking about yesterday when she saw the sticker, even… when she held the guitar, and when they stood here, playing and singing together. She heard his words… and her words… She saw his face, earlier at lunch, when Zay had asked if the two of them were broken up…

“Maya?” She blinked, hearing Riley’s voice. Looking up, she could see them staring at her. When they’d practice together like this, she’d stand facing toward them, not away from them, so she could only imagine what she must have looked like to them.

“I-I have to go, I’m sorry, I forgot I’m supposed to watch my sisters…” she rambled off, setting the guitar down, grabbing her bag and hurrying out before either of them could stop her. Mr. Matthews tried to stop her on the way out. He’d seen the look on her face back at school, of course, and she suspected he’d already talked to her father and found out what was going on, but she wasn’t in the mood for this, so she just shook her head and kept going.

The beat of January air on her face was a relief right then. There was no use going around like she could sidestep the thoughts in her head. It was overwhelming her at every turn. This thing with them, this fight, it may have happened the day before, but its effects were not done echoing. This had never happened, nothing like this, and she hated how much she felt like she had no control, no idea how to cope and move past it… if they could move past it.

She tried to tell herself that she was exaggerating, that it would never get to _that_ , but did she really know for sure?

The whole moment of the fight was getting to be a blur, some moments remaining very clear to her, playing through her head over and over while the rest was little more than impressions left in her, but the parts that did stay…

The one that stuck out the most was the thing she’d been hearing back over and over. He had made it sound like she’d forgotten him, like she didn’t care, and that… that had cut deep.

The whole time, from the start of last fall, the call for the morning show interview, and onward, every step of the way, she’d wanted to know that they were okay, that her driving forward with this chance they’d been offered wouldn’t be a problem. She wasn’t blind to how much was involved in the entire process, she was right at the heart of it, no one would know more about how much went into TXNY outside of herself and the other girls, but he was right there with those who were the closest to them that they would have to see it, their families, their friends, boyfriends…

And he had shown himself so understanding, every step of the way, giving her the impression that everything was fine. He had said go, go, go, and she’d gone, gone, gone, and he’d keep saying it, and she’d keep doing it. But now… now she was finding out he wasn’t as okay with it as he’d been saying, and suddenly it was her fault? How did that work? Did he think she didn’t actually want to know if he minded her doing or not doing something when she asked him if he did?

The whole thing had left her feeling like she didn’t know what was real anymore, left her wondering how long they’d been going around, carrying dishonesty and secrets… going through the motions.

What was she supposed to do, just stop? Quit the band? This was their future. Couldn’t he see it? Whether it would keep growing and become something more, there was no saying yet, but they owed themselves this attempt to find out. He’d told her as much, hadn’t he?

She missed him… she missed him… she missed him so much… and she still couldn’t make herself call him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	280. Their Problem With Distance

Tuesday morning came up rainy, which was almost too on point to feel like it was real. He woke up feeling like his shoulders had a design on being bent and low, taking his head with them. He had not slept well. Any time he managed to drift off, his dreams would come in like they thought they had a better idea, tossing memories of the fight again, showing him the last few weeks, how he’d been feeling, wondering what it would mean going forward, and then he’d wake up again… and again, and again.

Looking to his desk, he could see the notification light on his phone blinking and he got up at once to go and grab it. He just knew… it was her… she’d written him, she…

_Hey, hope I didn’t wake you, I just wanted to catch you before you left to come and pick me up._

The second message had come a full six minutes later.

_I have a couple things to do this morning, so I’ll just meet you there, okay? Love, Maya._

He reread the two messages over and over, for no other reason than he seemed stuck where he stood. When he finally blinked and looked up, it was because his screen had gone back dark, though he could still sort of see the words there.

He started getting ready for school – because what else was he going to do – even as the messages kept on rolling through his thoughts. There was plenty for him to get hung up on, wasn’t there? He could just see her, sitting back there in her room, writing out that first message with ease, but then… six minutes. He could write it off to her having been interrupted, but that felt unlikely. No, she’d sat there and as the seconds turned into minutes she tried to come up with the second part. And that was what she’d come up with.

He wasn’t calling her a liar, but he knew her habits of evading, sparing people’s feelings whether they were someone else’s feelings… or her own. If this kept going, what excuse would she have tomorrow morning? And the one after that? And the one after _that_? He would have replied back, telling her to just tell him if she didn’t want to see him, but… _Love, Maya_.

Was that just a reflex? Had she regretted it when she’d hit send? Or had it been intentional? A reminder… a reassurance… He couldn’t say one way or the other. What he did know was that it stopped his reply and willed him into playing along.

_Okay, see you there._

He stared at the keys for a few seconds after he’d hit send. His thumb hovered over the numbers until he could get past all the things that held him back. _366._ Send.

How long was it going to be this way? The two of them doing this dance of civil distance rather than putting their cards on the table… _She_ wasn’t ready, he could guess as much by the way she carried on keeping her distance.

Was _he_ ready? If he stood in front of her, right now, would he be able to say the words that were needed for things to go back to… No, he didn’t want them to just go back. Going back would mean going back to feeling the way he’d been feeling before, the way that had led to this whole fight and his standing here this morning with a heavy head. He didn’t want that, and that wasn’t what they needed.

They couldn’t go backward, they had to find a way to go forward. And right now, he didn’t know how. The ball was in her court, wasn’t it? This was _her_ band, _her_ time… And he was hers, too, just… sitting by, waiting, and hating every minute of it.

Just months ago, he had flown off, very nearly cross country, just to get back to her, to set things right. But that had been something else. That had been a problem with a very clear solution. This was a problem that had brewing right under their noses without either one of them catching a whiff of it, and now… now they were in the thick of it, blinded.

He had been right on the evading nature of her message. At this very moment, as he was finishing getting ready and heading down to breakfast, Maya still sat down in her room in the basement, sitting on her bed with her phone in hand.

She had been getting ready, too, the lack of speed or urgency in her movements showing plainly that her message to Lucas might have read something more like _I’m having trouble focusing this morning, so by the time I’m ready and out the door I’ll probably arrive much later than I usually do._

When she’d woken up that morning, for a moment, she hadn’t remembered any of it. The fight, the silence… Just as she’d woken up, she could remember what she’d been dreaming of, and of all things it was the opposite of a bad dream. She had dreamed of him, right here with her, of herself curled up small against him as he held her close.

It wasn’t just a dream, it was a memory. They’d been watching a movie, her laptop perched on her desk and turned just so that they could see the screen from this position of repose. And after the movie had ended, they’d just stayed this way, happy, and warm… She was never so happy as in moments like this.

But the more she’d woken up, the more she was pulled away from that memory and into the waking world, reality had hit her all over again, not slow, not cautious, no. It hit her like a ton of bricks. Her cozy memory was replaced with shouts and angry faces. She’d pressed her palms to her closed eyes like she might be able to go back, but there was no use.

He’d shown up the morning before, and that said plenty about the kind of guy he was, but then after that, after he’d shown up, it had sort of been worse than if he hadn’t shown up. They’d had nothing to say. And today… She still felt so off center because of all this, and the only thing she could think to do, for the time being, was to prevent either of them being stuck in that situation… again. So, she’d picked up her phone and started typing.

_Hey, hope I didn’t wake you, I just wanted to catch you before you left to come and pick me up._

She’d sent that, started typing again… then stopped. What was she supposed to tell him? She wasn’t going to tell him that she didn’t want to see him. That wasn’t what it was, oh it was so far from that. But right now, seeing him made her sad, and overwhelmed and… and just a bit angry… and she couldn’t feed that feeling, not now, not like this.

She tried and tried to come up with the right words, sometimes telling it plainly, sometimes coming up with excuses so much more far fetched than they had any need to be. In the end, she had found the closest thing she could find that was close to the truth but not so close that the truth could be seen. Not that it would fool him. She was almost sure he would see right through her, but it was the best she could do.

_I have a couple things to do this morning, so I’ll just meet you there, okay? Love, Maya._

The tag on the end _had_ been a reflex, only she’d seen it before she’d hit send, and she’d looked at it for a minute or so, her thumb wavering, not quite reaching the send button yet. It wouldn’t be as though she didn’t mean it. She couldn’t remember who it was that had told her this once, but she knew that all this, everything that was happening right now… it wouldn’t hurt this much if she didn’t love him. But if she sent it like that, would she be giving him mixed signals? I love you but stay away?

Finally, she’d just hit send because… well, no matter what was going on, and no matter how long it would take before they moved past this, she wasn’t able or willing to sacrifice this truth.

He wasn’t ready to sacrifice it either. His reply, when it had come, had been in two parts as well, brief but loaded. The first had been the easy part for him, too. _Okay, see you there._ Then the second part…

  1. One number, but as ever loaded with so much meaning that it defied the need for anything else. He loved her. He would love her, every day.



TO BE CONTINUED


	281. Their Uncertainty Toward Steps

It was Friday now, the week very nearly done, and as they all sat in their afternoon classes, they could absolutely say it was one of those weeks where they felt in equal amounts that the week had dragged on forever and that they couldn’t believe it was actually over… almost.

They had barely spoken all week. They _had_ shared words, though the vast majority – the rest coming in the form of greetings and brief inquiries on how the other was doing – was in the context of class, especially French and dance in the mornings.

On Tuesday evening, he had written her. The text had been brief but honest, telling her that he realized she didn’t want him coming to pick her up these days, and so he wouldn’t, not until she wanted him to again… if she wanted him to again. Her reply had been a simple _Thank you_ followed by the ever loaded _366._

He had taken it with something like relief, to know at least in some way they were communicating, although he would have wanted said communication to go a whole other way.

She had taken it with quiet tears, sitting in her room, trying to get a hold of her emotions before she went upstairs again. She had ended up taking refuge in the nursery with her sisters, their little happy faces able to reverse the deepest of sad faces.

The suspension of their morning walks seemed to settle more weight to this fight between them, showing just how much this wasn’t a quick little tiff that would resolve itself with little to no effort. As much as that realization weighed heavily on the two of them, what they couldn’t help but see was how much it affected their friends, too.

That their relationship could mean so much to all of them, Maya wasn’t so much surprised as she was touched… maybe a bit pained, too. The last thing she needed was to feel as though she was letting _them_ down, too. Worse yet was the possibility of their riff forcing division into the group, forcing any of them to pick sides.

They weren’t at that level yet, and if they had any say in it they would never get that far. They ate lunch at the same table, though the seating arrangements had a way of alternating from day to day, never bringing them side by side. Each day that came in this way, they would have a moment where their eyes would briefly meet, each of them seeming to ask the same question but being unable to answer it.

At least the meals weren’t spent in awkward silence, at least their class time was feeling a bit less distracted. Focusing on what they were supposed to do was as good of a way to cope as any, maybe.

But then once they got home, it felt as though the distractions had to work harder to grab their attention. They knew much too intimately already what it was like to miss one another, but this was something else, wasn’t it? This was missing one another and recalling they were the cause for their own loneliness, feeling the reverberations of the fight whenever they remembered.

Lucas had done his best to act normal at home, to keep his parents out of it as much as possible. Sure, his father knew already, but he was easy to count on for discretion, as always. His policy continued to be ‘I’m here if you want to talk.’

It was his mother he was trying to keep in the dark, and that sounded worse than it was, really. He just knew how she would get, and he didn’t want to have to deal with it. This would pass… this would pass… That was what he told himself, over and over, both validating his silence and giving him the reassurance which he needed.

The covert act had worked up until the previous afternoon, when his mother had finally asked him how come Maya hadn’t been to the house all week. Considering how she would usually be here every other day, sometimes every day, the fact that she hadn’t been seen in over four days had finally raised some questions in his mother.

Lucas had tried to write it off as her having been too busy, but maybe his face was refusing to commit to the lie, because his mother saw right through it and he was finally forced to let her in on the situation. He didn’t go so far as to explain the cause of the fight, only telling her that they would work it out (he hoped, he hoped) and that she shouldn’t get involved. He realized there was no guarantee she would listen, but he had to try.

Maya, for her part, was continuing her campaign of putting on a brave face, not wanting the whole thing to spin out of control and turn into the Ban 2.0. That was all good and fine, except all it did for her was to box her into a corner of feeling all the aches of being at odds with the boy she loved… only to have to pretend like it wasn’t hurting her as much as it did when she was at home. The longer she’d have to keep it down… she didn’t know how long she’d be able to hold it together.

In what felt something like cruel irony, she hadn’t managed to put in any time with the band all week. She’d tried, but every time she did, it always ended the same way, with her feeling like she’d hit some brick wall. She couldn’t do it… but she had to… she had to… The band was due for another morning show appearance the Monday after next…

Now that the week was ending, they wouldn’t be put into one another’s paths again, not for a few days, not unless they went seeking each other. That realization had come to the both of them, and when it did, it left them feeling… nothing. Would it be a good thing or a bad one? They didn’t know how to feel.

TO BE CONTINUED


	282. Their Uncertainty Toward Blaming

As their final class of the week came to a close, Maya felt a presence at her back she recognized at once. She turned to Riley, finding her standing there with Nadine at her side.

“Do you think… Well it’s just that… With the performance coming up…” Riley went about her hesitant request.

“Can we have a practice?” Nadine rescued her, cutting to the chase. Maya let out a breath. They hadn’t managed to get through one all week, but her bandmates were right. They had always believed in keeping up practices, not resting on the belief that they didn’t need it. No performance would be put above the others in importance, deciding whether or not they needed it. To be on television though, there _were_ some heightened stakes, weren’t there?

“I… sure…” she sighed.

While she was sure they would in fact have the practice in time, it wasn’t until they got to the Matthews house and they went up to Riley’s room instead of the basement music room that she realized her friends may have had other plans in mind before any of them could pick up their instruments. She didn’t want it, but she knew… there would be no getting out of this, not if she ever expected to get anywhere.

They wanted to talk about her and Lucas and the fight.

“Are you guys okay?” Nadine asked, as Riley shut the door. Maya looked from one to the other, somehow still debating the validity of dashing for an exit through the window. “You said you didn’t break up, but…”

“We didn’t,” Maya insisted at once. It was stronger than her, the mere suggestion… She sighed again. “We’re not, it’s just… complicated, right now,” she told them. By the look on their faces, she knew that wasn’t going to cut it. Why was it so hard for her to talk to anyone about this? Hadn’t she grown out of this phase in her life?

“But what happened? Did he do something?” Riley asked.

“No… no…” Maya once again found it impossible to keep quiet. She didn’t want them to start and think that Lucas had done something he hadn’t done, didn’t want them casting him as the villain, when… when…

Her thoughts paused as much as her words had done. For a moment there she’d been about to suggest that if he wasn’t the villain then she was, but that wasn’t even what this was about, was it? She hadn’t done anything wrong either, not like that…

“Then what was it?” Nadine asked. Maya looked at her, at Riley. They meant well, she knew they did, but couldn’t this just be her thing without anyone else shaping it to what they thought it had to be? Then again, shouldn’t she have been able to confide in her friends at a time like this? She guessed the thing that hitched was the possibility that they might take the protective friend stance too far…

Finally, she chose to put her faith in her friends. If they were the people she knew them to be – which they were – then she shouldn’t have anything to worry about. So, she told them everything. She told them about the fight, how it had started, how it had ended, and everything in between. The entire time as she spoke, her voice showing (she hoped) the way she wished and didn’t wish for this whole situation to be grasped, the two of them listened, never interrupting once.

“Hey…” Riley put her arms around her when she was done. Maya welcomed the embrace gladly. “You’ll be okay,” Riley went on, and Maya didn’t know how much she’d needed to hear this until she heard it. There was this low rumbling in her chest like she was about to cry, but she held it together, right up until Nadine joined her arms to the hold, and then she was a goner.

She was scared. That was the thing, really. She was scared that they _weren’t_ going to be okay, that they would never recover and she was going to lose him, and… and it would have been her fault.

How could it not, really? Maybe it was the both of them, to some degree, but for the most part… Right this moment, here she stood, with her bandmates holding on to her, both of them with boyfriends of their own, and were they having any problems of their own? Not at all. What had they done? What had _she_ not done, that made that she and Lucas were in trouble, and the rest of them were not?

“You know what we’re going to do?” Riley spoke at her ear. “We’re going to pick up our instruments, and we’re going to do one song. I think you know the one. We’re going to let everything out, everything. And we’re going to keep on playing as long as we need to.”

“Make it loud,” Nadine agreed. Maya had no choice but to let out the laugh that fought its way out in that moment. She found one girl’s hand and then the other’s, gave them both a good squeeze, received one in return. They were just the friends she needed, and she now could see how foolish she’d been to think she couldn’t talk to them.

They did just as Riley had said they would. They got up their instruments, and with the click of Nadine’s drumsticks they started to play. The song had always been one they went to, when they needed to wake themselves up, to crank up the excitement. This time around, it set the pace for Maya’s climb out of the feelings that had pulled her down. They played, and they played, and she sang at the top of her lungs, and for that time, if only then, she felt at peace.

TO BE CONTINUED


	283. Their Uncertainty Toward Sharing

Leaving school on Friday afternoon, Lucas didn’t want to go home. He didn’t want to have to sit there on his own, or worse, he didn’t want to have his mother hovering about, worrying about him… It was almost just as bad as after the accident.

Lucky for him, he had friends, several of them, and he also had basketball. In no time, he was on his way to the Orlando house, with Dylan, and Asher, and Zay, the four childhood friends splitting up two on two at the hoop. If he could focus on this, maybe he wouldn’t get caught up in his own thoughts.

The problem about not trying to think about something, especially something important, _someone_ important, when he was very aware of how much he missed her, and very aware of why they were presently apart… in a setting like this… He became distracted in a whole other way. He would be moving around, the ball bouncing from his hand to the ground and back, and at each turn it would feel as though he could sense her here, like some residual ghost of all the games they’d played in this spot. If he started to see flashes of a blond ponytail, he’d be done for.

“Lucas, do something already!” Zay was calling, and snapping back to reality he tossed the ball… A few inches over and he’d have probably busted the Orlandos’ living room window.

“Sorry,” he told Dylan. “Sorry,” he told the others. He jogged over to pick up the ball, turning it over in his hands. There was a small mark on it, not from this, but from another game they’d played. That time though, Maya had been there. She’d been the one to make that mark. She’d apologized to Dylan, though he didn’t mind in the slightest.

Whatever he did, wherever he went, he couldn’t escape her. The universe was intent on revealing her to him, all the time, reminding him that something was wrong between them right now and they needed to do something about it, because this hurt like hell…

And now there were his friends, all looking at him like they didn’t know what to say or do now, while he stood there staring at the basketball with that look on his face. Maybe this had been a mistake, maybe… maybe he should just head home after all.

“Just go talk to her, Lucas,” Asher had been the one to finally speak up. “You both really need it.” Did they? Did she? He just saw her face, all week long, saw her face right before she’d walked away, after the fight in the middle of all that. All his instincts still told him that if he tried to say or do anything before she was open to it he would lose her… and there’d be no coming back from that.

“I can’t,” he finally spoke, his voice coming out strange and faraway.

“Why not?” Dylan asked.

“It’s complicated,” Lucas insisted. He really just wanted to go home now.

“Doesn’t seem that complicated to me,” Zay put in. “You two are about as solid as it gets out there, now here you’ve got this crack breaking in and it’s freaking you out. It’s like when Nadine, that one time she got an A-.”

Lucas wasn’t sure what to say to that, but maybe part of it was because Zay may have had a point. That was sort of what he’d known all along, whether or not he would have put it in words like that.

“Was it really that bad?” Asher asked. “You never said what the fight was about.” Because he didn’t want to, sure, but right now it didn’t feel like there was any point for him to do that anymore. He shook his head, trying to come up with the words to describe it.

“It was… stupid… except it wasn’t,” he told them. “I was realizing some stuff and I said it aloud and…” he shook his head. “It all exploded from there.” He’d pretty much known she would get upset, and he wouldn’t have said anything, at least not like that, but then it all just sort of happened… He explained it all, as best he could. When he was done, the others looked to one another. This wasn’t exactly the kind of conversation the four of them were used to having, but it came through alright.

“You know the whole time you were telling us all that, you kept on defending her,” Dylan pointed out. Lucas looked at him. “I think you’ll be okay,” he shrugged.

“It’s not just about me though,” Lucas replied.

“No,” Zay agreed. “But we’ve known Maya over five years now, and you know her better than the rest of us put together, I figure. Tell me this, if whatever’s going on with you was a deal breaker, would she still insist you guys aren’t broken up?”

He hadn’t actually looked at it that way. He really should have though, shouldn’t he? Zay was right. They _weren’t_ broken up, but they probably would have been, if that was what Maya wanted. But they weren’t. Did it mean that they wouldn’t be? No… not necessarily… but maybe. And that might have been good enough for him, for now.

All in all, the afternoon hadn’t turned out exactly as he would have wanted it to go. The game had fizzled out, and he’d ended up going home after all. Despite all that, he had left with something bordering on renewed confidence. Things might change, things might get better. They were not so hopeless as they’d gotten to feel as the week progressed.

He wondered where she was right now. It was weird not knowing, although if he had to take a guess she would be with Riley and Nadine. Maybe they’d set her on the path, too.

TO BE CONTINUED


	284. Their Uncertainty Toward Talking

On Saturday morning, Maya was up bright and early, finding a focus in herself she hadn’t felt for days right as she needed it. Saturday mornings started out with team time. All twelve of them, running, training, practicing… It was a routine they had developed together, and it had really helped to bind them together as a team. That morning, the workout was never so welcomed: it helped her clear her head, and once she came home and showered and changed, she was ready for errands with her parents and her sisters.

They had been in the grocery store for maybe five minutes when they turned down a new aisle and spotted the Friars coming from the other end.

They all stopped where they stood as soon as they saw each other. The parents on both ends, their respective son and daughter… Not that Lucas or Maya really thought of their parents’ presence at first. For having seen each other at school all week, something about seeing each other here felt different… like this was the first time since the day of the fight.

That was the first moment, the split second, taking your breath and then giving it back, bringing the world back with it… like parents, standing at your side and looking at the other family… probably thinking up a bunch of things you didn’t want them thinking about. When they both had their snapback, the way out of this awkward moment came together in an instant, though the consequence would very likely force the pair of them into a new layer of awkwardness… talking.

“I’m going to go look for cereal,” Lucas told his parents, backing out of the aisle.

“I forgot I’m out of shampoo,” Maya told hers, doing the same.

He went and found his cereal. She found a bottle of her shampoo, trailing slow along the aisle, plotting out how she’d make her one-third full bottle back home disappear, debating how long she needed to stall before finding her family again… And then there he was, standing a few feet ahead of her, absently tossing a cereal box from hand to hand like he had been stalling, too. Right then, the split second hit them again, only this time there was no one else there to get in the way. It was just him and her and a choice. Forward, talking… or backward, evading.

A minute elapsed, neither one of them choosing option number two, and it felt like they were permitting one another to attempt an approach… so they approached, until they were at arm’s length from one another. Looking at each other would be the logical next step, and that was where the hitch showed up. They tried, both in turn, but whenever they did manage it they knew it would mean they were supposed to actually start talking and… that was sort of the problem.

What were they supposed to say?

“How was the girls’ workout this morning?” was the first thing Lucas thought to ask. As good of an ice breaker as anything, right?

“Good, it was… it was fine,” she latched on to this, but once she’d said it… they were back to zero. The longer it drew on, it only made them feel worse. How could they be this way? They used to be able to go on talking for hours and hours, and right now they could barely string a half dozen words together before falling silent all over again. “You… you’re working today?” she finally came around to ask.

“Yeah,” he replied. “You?”

“Yeah,” she echoed, “After we get back home I have to get ready…”

Whatever they needed to say to each other, it wasn’t going to happen here and now, was it? They were both due at their jobs, their parents were somewhere in the store, maybe going off at each other and trying to decide whose kid had hurt whose… This wasn’t going to be the time, the place… but they were here, they were together, and it felt like they should at least try, even a little?

Except they had nothing, neither one of them. She couldn’t speak for him, but all she had in her head was a jumble, of emotions, of memories, of thoughts… and she couldn’t unscramble them enough to pick out something she could possibly say that wouldn’t make things worse or start them down a path they didn’t have time to follow… She didn’t know what to do. She was stuck. And by the looks of him, he was having the same issue.

“I should go, the twins will get fussy if they have to stay in their seats too long,” she rattled off, the easiest words to come to her since they’d seen each other.

“Sure, yeah,” he looked down to the cereal in his hands, realizing for the first time that he’d picked up a kind he actually didn’t like. “I need to go switch these,” he spoke aloud. They looked to one another, the moment holding just a few beats more before they started walking past one another.

“Lucas?” she stopped then, turning around. He stopped, too, turning around in a heartbeat.

“Yeah?” he asked. The words were failing her again… no… she had to say…

“I…” she started, hoping somehow that she could trick herself into speaking up. “Today’s going to be pretty hectic… tomorrow, too, we have…”

“Band stuff,” he nodded. She looked up at him, he looked down.

“Tomorrow night… keep your phone with you?” she asked, and he looked up again. He let out a breath.

“I will,” he promised. They held each other’s gaze, maybe the longest they’d done in days, then finally she moved on to find her parents and her sisters, and he went to get the right cereal. Tomorrow night… tomorrow… Would it be the return to normal, or would it be the end of them? Tomorrow… Tomorrow…

TO BE CONTINUED


	285. Their Uncertainty Toward the Future

Saturday had been long… Sunday was longer.

He made it through the first of those days, just focusing on what was happening at the moment instead of concentrating on what would happen on the next day. Then again, ‘just focusing’ didn’t sound quite right. It was hard to focus completely when his mind seemed hardwired for seeing her in everything he saw, everything he did.

Being in the museum had felt like the world was trying to challenge him. This place had so much meaning to the both of them, to their relationship. Five years ago, they’d just been new friends, but they’d been here, sneaking around in the middle of a field trip. And then on their first date they’d been… Well, they’d been outside the museum, mostly, because of the rain and the guard, but they’d made up for that. And then he’d gotten the job here, and it was something they shared even more.

But on Saturday, being there, he gave what might have been his flattest tours, only managing to do what he was meant to do for the fact that he knew the whole thing by heart. There was no emotion in him, and he ignored a lot of the questions that were asked of him, the ones he would usually answer gladly. At the end of the day, his boss had come to him, saying how he’d received complaints. Lucas had apologized, telling him he was having an off day. Going off the look on the man’s face, he guessed he wouldn’t be able to use the excuse many more times.

And today, Sunday… it was supposed to be double game day. The girls in the morning, the guys in the afternoon. Except a pipe had burst in the gym on Friday afternoon, so the games had been relocated to their opponents’ schools, sending Lucas and his team one way and Maya and hers another instead of having them all in the same place, able to cheer each other on.

He hadn’t heard yet how _her_ game had gone. His own had come very close to being a bit of a disaster. He’d been off… well, off his game. He’d missed shots that should have been a piece of cake, earning him a solid talking to by his coach, though team captain Scott had backed him up. He knew what this was all about at least. Lucas couldn’t go and tell his coach ‘sorry, I’m distracted because my girlfriend and I are having problems.’

Now here he was, finally, Sunday evening. Was she going to call? Or text? He didn’t know, but either way he was ready. He had his phone with him, not on silent, so when she’d call or write, he would know. He’d gotten through family dinner with his parents and his grandfather without acting like a fidgety mess, so that was something, right?

Sitting in his room, staring at his phone screen like it would light up at any second was going to make him lose it. What if she didn’t do it? What if she forgot, or changed her mind? He couldn’t really do anything about that if she did, right?

All this sitting around, being so nervous, he hadn’t known it would affect him this way, but then how could it not? This might be the decisive moment, the crossroads of their relationship, and all he wanted right now was to see the two of them go down whichever road would mean that they wouldn’t be over. This couldn’t be the end… he loved her, more than anyone, and he knew she loved him, too. There had to be a way out of this. He knew both of them needed to be honest with one another. Neither of them was completely innocent, he’d be the first to admit it, although never in such a way that would suggest he blamed her. That wasn’t what this was, not really.

His grandfather had told him that this could turn out to be a good thing for them in the long run, that fights could have a way of resetting some clocks, of giving them both an opportunity to share and grow from it. He had shared stories of fights he’d had with his wife over the years, and then his parents had chimed in with a few of their own. He wanted to believe them, he was going to… This was just a step on their journey. He and Maya had a whole future ahead of them, he fully believed it.

Sitting there in his room, he pulled out a piece of paper from the printer, grabbed a pen, and started writing. They both kept freezing up when they’d try and talk, maybe if he wrote some things down ahead of time he wouldn’t be stuck when the time came for him to speak.

His page seemed to fill out primarily with memories, with good things, qualities… all these things that had filled him with love for her. He had to think about everything they’d said to each other when they’d had the fight… a week ago already… Those were the things they really needed to work through somehow. It was the hardest thing to try and figure out, because that was really the sort of thing they needed to figure out together, wasn’t it?

He kept thinking of the future, the distant one he would see in his head sometimes. Him and her, living happily, with a family of their own. They were almost out of high school now, months away. That whole part of their lives wasn’t here yet, no, but it was getting closer every day, and when they’d be out of high school, off to college… Everything was about to change, and so much of it was confusing, full of question marks. The one thing he knew with certainty, the one he could hold on to, was her… Maya Hart… being a part of it, with him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	286. Their Uncertainty Toward the Truth

Growing up, she had always presented herself as the brave one, the daring one, ready for anything. Everyone would see her that way and they would know not to mess with her. Everyone would see her that way and maybe… maybe she could fool herself long enough in those times when she didn’t actually feel all that brave, or daring, or ready at all.

It was all a lot of smoke screen, protecting a young girl who’d seen some hurt early on in her life and went along braced for the next thing to come and try and throw her off. In the last few years, she’d learned to see past that, to be honest with herself. The side-effect in all that, of course, was that she’d leave herself open to situations like this, where her feelings felt like they got bigger than what her hands could hold.

After that encounter in the grocery store, after she’d committed to some form of conversation the following night, Maya felt like her brain would not let her be. She’d gotten back to her parents, her sisters, finding they had carried on going down the aisles as they awaited her return, though that did not mean they hadn’t been talking about her. She caught the tail end of that conversation as she approached them, shampoo bottle in hand, followed by a matching set of expressions on their faces showing how they didn’t want her seeing that they had been talking about her.

The rest of the day had gone on a lot like that, it felt. There was an elephant in the room, and it would not be ignored. She had not asked them what they and the Friars had said to each other, and _they_ hadn’t asked her about what she and Lucas had said to one another. But those conversations had taken place, none of them were denying it, and from that they got these awkward beats. It was just as well then that they were all busy. She had her shift at the diner, and after that it was family night…

On Sunday, there was the game. It would have been double game day, it _was_ , except the guys and the girls were not playing in the same gym for once. The whole ride on the bus, headed to the other school’s gym, the one thing she kept wondering was what would have happened if they _had_ been in the same gym, both of their teams playing, one in the morning, one in the afternoon.

Would they have unleashed their special call for one another? Or would they have been left silent? They couldn’t know that now.

The game had not been a spectacular runaway win, more of a ‘by the skin of our teeth’ win situation. She was distracted and she could admit it, not that she had to. By now the team was close enough that all those girls were her friends, just as the old team had been. They all knew she was having problems with Lucas right now. A few of them had been giving him a bit of stink eye in the halls this week, though she’d insisted that wasn’t necessary.

On the ride back, she was thinking about him again, thinking how she had missed his presence, missed knowing he would be there to cheer her on… missed being there to cheer _him_ on, too. She just missed him… so much…

And now, now they were due for this conversation, the one she had set up for them. And she was terrified. What if they made things worse? What if she… made things worse?

She didn’t want to lose him, if she hadn’t lost him already, hadn’t lost a part of him that would make that the rest didn’t hold.

After dinner, Sunday night, she retreated down into her room, the dogs trailing in after her. They had grown so much, her little pups, but the one thing that did not change was how much they would crowd in around her with love and care. Laid out on her bed, phone in hand, she was thankful for the warm presence of Tuck, and Queen, and Ghost, blanketing her in the January chill.

She must have stared at her phone for a solid half hour… maybe closer to an hour. She didn’t know how to begin. She didn’t know if she was going to call him, voice or video, if she was going to write… Maybe it would be easier to just write… yeah… maybe for now they could start like that. Less pressure on both of them. But then _what_ would she write?

Willing herself to think about the whole thing, what he’d said, what she’d said, it felt to her that they were just never going to be able to brush the whole thing away. Both of them had their issues, and it may well have been that those issues were valid on both ends. They were, weren’t they? For her part, she knew she hadn’t been in the wrong, not… not entirely… but then maybe he wasn’t either.

She let out a breath, for what felt like the hundredth time. She just had to start. She couldn’t be scared, she just had to… move forward, to think about what it was they were fighting for. Him and her, they were worth this fight… not The Fight from a week ago, but the one now, for their couple’s getting back on track. This wasn’t just about saying ‘there, fight over, moving on.’ How ever they’d ended up here, they had to talk, didn’t they? They needed to say what needed saying, without getting mad, without storming off… again…

Of all the things she believed and trusted in the world, Lucas Friar, the love they shared, their future… It was one of the things she believed in the most. They had to fight for that.

TO BE CONTINUED


	287. Their Uncertainty Toward Words

There would be no easy way to start this, she knew. So, after a while of staring at her phone, she went and started typing out a text. She wasn’t going to question what she should or shouldn’t write here.

_“Are you there?”_

After hitting send, the seconds that went by felt overly long, as few of them as there really were before she got a reply.

_“I am. Talk or text.”_

It wasn’t a question, it was a fact. He was telling her that whatever she preferred he would do what she wanted to do. It was a small reminder, as though she needed it, of the kind of guy he was. It made her feel just a bit rotten to think that she might have jeopardized having him at her side, even though… No, she wasn’t going to play the blame game, not here, not like this…

For a moment she did consider simply calling him. She missed the sound of his voice, the way she could just hear in it… how much he loved her. Could he hear it in _her_ voice, too, when they talked?

But then she just remembered all those times over the past week where they had struggled to put words together and talk to one another, and she didn’t want that here… again… So, at least for now, she wrote. Maybe as the conversation went on they would get to a place where they could move to a call?

_“How was your game today?”_

She knew they’d won their game, too, per Keilani Avelino’s relaying the tale, sitting in the stands to watch her brother, which had nearly made her late for the bus to _their_ game. Even then, she still wanted to hear it from him. It was as good of a place as any to turn to for an ice breaker, and she had a feeling he would get that. Right now, they needed to get to a place where they were more at ease talking to one another again…

_“Rough one,”_ he started. _“Every time we got ahead they scored and we fell behind again. Stayed like that to the end, then Asher got one in at the last second and we won.”_ She could just see it in her head as he described it. Those guys, especially the ones she’d watched play for a few years, she could imagine all their faces as they struggled to get on top and stay there, Lucas especially.

_“Ours was complicated, too,”_ she wrote him. _“I kept thinking about tonight.”_ Had they been talking, the hesitation that had played itself out in the seconds it took for her to actually let herself type and send those words would have shown every part of her struggles. Instead, the words went out without trouble or hesitation. Seeing them there, she couldn’t deny they were the truth. And they invited more. _“I kept waiting to hear the call.”_

_“I did, too,”_ he replied several seconds later, and it made her smile. Before she knew it, she felt as though her fingers had taken up a mind of their own as they went on typing.

_“I miss you,”_ they said, and then the message was out there for him to see.

_“I miss you, too,”_ his reply came quickly, easily. It made her feel like she was learning to breathe again. _“I want things to be okay between us again.”_

She wanted the same thing, of course she did, and there had been no doubt in her that he wanted this, too. But then here they were, finally at The Thing. She doubted there was ever any question of where they stood, but then there was still this issue between them that needed resolving. Now here they stood, having to try and sort it out, and she felt the uneasiness crawl through her again.

She felt a nuzzling at her side and she smiled, looking down to Tuck, staring back at her with those big dog eyes. She gave his head a scratch and his tongue lolled happily.

“You big nerd,” she chuckled, leaning to kiss the top of the dog’s head. For having been the one to receive the name inspired by Lucas fairly randomly, he wore it very well. He’d been particularly unsettled around her all week, like he knew something was wrong.

Remembering that she was meant to be writing, and that she had been silent for a good minute after that last statement, she was quick to start typing again. _“Still here, sorry. Dog distraction.”_ After she’d sent this, maybe as reflex, she stretched her arm out with her phone, snapping a shot of herself and her blanket of pups and sent it to him.

A few seconds later, a new message came in, with a picture attached, showing Lucas sitting on the floor in his room, with Dash lying next to him, head in his lap. _“Same.”_ It made her laugh.

When she started to type again, her brow was furrowed, trying to will herself to put into words what needed to be said. _“Why didn’t you say anything before? If it was bothering you so much that I was focusing on the band like that?”_

A minute went by, then another, and she could see him out there, trying to put his reply together, stopping, starting over a few times… As she lay there, waiting, she tried not to think about the fight itself too much. She needed to remind herself that whatever they’d said back there, a lot of it had probably gotten blown way out of proportion. A lot of it would have been based on the truth, sure, but did she believe that it was that simple anymore? No, not really…

Anyone who’d put in their piece of advice, of opinion, over the past week, had more or less pointed out that the two of them had never fought like this, not even close. And for that, for how uncommon it was to them, it might all have gotten blown way out of proportion. After all this time, she could sort of see it, finally, she could. Now they just needed to let the excess fade away, until they found the root at the heart of it all.

The wait for replies always made her nervous, but this one was taking so long that it only seemed to make it worse. Did he have a lot to say or did he not know how to phrase it all? After a lot of hesitation, she started to think maybe she was ready to try and simply call him, to let their voices… well, let their voices do the talking. Maybe they would get there this time, maybe they would find their rhythm again.

In the end, she chose to wait it out. Whatever he was in the process of writing, maybe she should wait until he had it pieced together, and she could read it. _Then_ she could call him. Yes. That was what she would do.

She didn’t know when she’d dozed off, but then the next thing she knew the morning sun was shining into the basement. She sat up in her bed, still fully dressed from the night before, her blanket of dogs sleeping soundly on the floor by her bed. Reaching for her phone, she expected to find a message or three or ten, Lucas asking her where she’d gotten off to.

The last message was still hers. _“Why didn’t you say anything before? If it was bothering you so much that I was focusing on the band like that?”_ He hadn’t responded. Nothing.

What did that mean? Why hadn’t he…

Taking up her courage, or maybe her rising frustration, she called him. She listened to the repeating tone, the call going on without being picked up, until in the end she got his voicemail.

She hung up without leaving a message. She stared down at her phone in her hand. What did this mean? Why hadn’t he replied? Had he come to the conclusion that it was really bothering him that much? Too much? No… He wouldn’t? Would he?

She didn’t want to be ‘that girl,’ but she texted, once, twice, three times, as she went about changing her clothes, preparing to head to school. Monday morning… Why hadn’t he replied? She could feel herself grow more and more aggravated, though she tried not to. Was he freezing her out? After all this? If he was… Oh, if he was…

It was something of a benefit to her that her parents maintained the mode they’d been in all week with her, where they knew she was dealing with something and they were letting her handle it as she saw fit, because she really didn’t want to get into this with them. She just wanted to get her breakfast and head off to school, to find Lucas Friar, and to see what this was all about.

TO BE CONTINUED


	288. His Fear For Family

Maya left home and made her way to school, the whole time feeling just a bit unnerved, not knowing how to deal with the ongoing silence coming from Lucas. Not one text, not one call, though she’d given it a few more tries since starting on her way toward school. Now she sat on their bench, alone, and the minutes set themselves to a snail’s pace ahead of her. She needed to do something, to sort out her thoughts, not to sink deeper into this state. She needed to focus on her classes.

When the others started to arrive, one by one, she gave a very convincing performance as someone completely unconcerned, not at all annoyed or frustrated or confused or hurt. She kept waiting for Lucas to show up, to tell her what had happened, why he hadn’t replied. But the minutes kept on going by and he still didn’t show.

In time, as the first bell grew nearer and nearer, there was just no choice but for them all to head inside. Lucas being late was unsurprisingly a popular subject among the group, though Maya remained fairly quiet on the matter. The longer it went on, the more a part of her started to try and convince her that she didn’t care.

She went off to her first class, and her second, tapping into a well of focus she had seemed unable to reach for so long in the past week. It almost felt like she was back to normal, and it wasn’t until third period that things changed.

Making her way from AP English to French, she found Dylan already there waiting, Riley at his side, the two of them talking. When they saw her coming, there was an odd look on their faces.

“What’s going on?” Maya asked, looking from one to the other.

“We were just wondering why Lucas isn’t here today,” Riley told her. Maya blinked.

“He wasn’t in first or second?” she asked Dylan, who would have shared both of those with him.

“No,” Dylan shook his head. “We thought you might have talked to him, except…” Except the two of them were in a fight and not really talking.

French class started, but Lucas’ chair remained conspicuously empty the entire class, and the same would have been said for dance class after that, if there had been a chair to fill. He hadn’t been there all morning. It was a wonder Maya’s phone wasn’t confiscated for all the times she pulled it out to see if he’d written or called. Still nothing.

She stalled as the others had gone on toward the cafeteria. If he wasn’t here, his parents must have called him in sick, no? Someone had to know what was going on. She started on her way to the principal’s office, working out some excuse that would convince the secretary to tell her about Lucas’ absence. She could be very convincing when she had to be.

She hadn’t made it quite to the administrative office when she spotted Mr. Matthews talking with the boys’ basketball coach. She would have gone on right by him with only a quick nod of acknowledgment, except she was sure she’d caught the name Friar spoken between the two men, and as soon as she did she ducked into hiding. It was silly, and she wasn’t sure why she did it but now here she was.

She could barely hear what they were saying, only catching a few words here and there, but then the ones she did hear were enough to keep her right where she stood. She heard ‘called this morning’ and ‘hospital last night’ and after that her brain felt too big to function.

When she snapped back to reality, her entire perspective on the day shifted. Afternoon classes were forgotten, books and lunch time, she forgot them all. In five minutes’ time, she was dashing out of the school, calling up a cab, and she was bound for the hospital. Convincing the driver that she wasn’t merely skipping school was not nearly as complicated as it could have been. Nothing and no one could have stopped her.

She was dropped off at the main entrance, and dashing through the doors she managed to run into one of the nurses who’d tended to her after her accident. The woman remembered her, and when she said she was looking for Lucas, she was directed up to the third floor.

“Wait, hold on!” the woman called after her, but she was already on the run once again. Barely catching the elevator before the doors closed, she stood there for a few seconds, trying to catch her breath before the doors opened again and she was running once more, had to find…

“Maya?”

She skidded to a stop, turning to find… Lucas, standing there, the picture of wellness. She blinked for a moment, confused, but that confusion only melted away to be replaced by overwhelming relief.

“You’re okay…” she breathed, hurrying again, very nearly pouncing him as she threw her arms around him. He kept them both from falling, and now that they were balanced again, he hugged her back, completely startled but also taken with the knowledge that he was holding her in his arms for the first time in just over a week.

“How did you know I was here?” he asked, feeling her still trembling in his arms.

“I heard… at least I thought… I… What are you doing here? What happened?” she pulled back now, looking at his face, his beautiful, glorious, unharmed face.

“My grandfather had an accident at the house last night, we had to rush him in, I…” His eyes widened now like in all the haze of the past night and morning he was finally realizing… “Oh, I ran out of my room when I heard the crash, I left my phone, I… I’m so sorry, I know we were…”

“It’s okay,” she shook her head, feeling her eyes well up as she hugged him again. “I’m just glad you’re safe…” she breathed, feeling the warmth of him, his arms closed protectively around her. She knew they still needed to talk, but in that moment it did feel like this blockage between them had been forced out, the way opened out ahead of them.

TO BE CONTINUED


	289. His Fear For Accidents

Who knew how long the two of them would have remained stood out there in the hall, holding on to one another, if they hadn’t been called over by the impatient patient back in the room next to them? Even as they released one another, their fingers went and found one another so that they walked into the room hand in hand.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite rock star,” Pappy Joe gave a chuckle that came out just a bit labored. Maya was a bit stunned to see him. His leg was in a cast, maintained elevated by some contraption coming down from the ceiling. One of his arms was in a cast, too, and he had bruises on his face and a collar around his neck.

“Woah…” she couldn’t help but blurt out.

“You should see the other guy,” the old man laughed. “Not so much a guy as _my_ clumsy feet and a couple of steps,” he admitted after a few seconds.

“A couple? Try six,” Lucas frowned, sounding like the memory of the night before had given him a fair rattle. His grandfather gave a mumble at that and nothing more. Maya turned to look at Lucas for a moment, giving his hand a squeeze. _Hey, I’m here with you now._ It resolved itself in a small smile on his face. She released his hand now, to approach the bed.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked the man, gingerly reaching to give his good hand a touch.

“Please, I’ve had worse,” he gave a laugh.

“Tell that to your face,” she frowned at him, seeing he was clearly hurting. That only made him laugh harder, and she had to smile, giving him a cautious little hug.

“You know, I’ve always liked you. Lucas, tell me it’s not just the pain meds talking and the two of you are talking again? You’ve been looking miserable all week, son.” He looked up to Maya now. “Boy was all messed up without you,” he reported, and she had to bite back a chuckle, looking up to Lucas, who looked halfway embarrassed for being busted like that… but also halfway forced to nod his head in concession, too.

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” she confessed in return. “Don’t worry,” she went on to tell the man, though her eyes remained with his grandson, “It’ll all work out.” To see the hope alive in his eyes again, it only made her feel her own bloom up as well. Neither of them would have wanted it to happen this way, with poor Pappy Joe injured and laid out that way, but now that they were here they couldn’t well get tied up in details.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” the injured man asked, looking up at her with a fair amount of authority still in his face despite being laid out here.

“Hey, he’s not,” she pointed out, nodding to Lucas.

“Yeah, _I’m_ not,” he backed her up, making her chuckle.

“You need me more than they do,” Maya went on, moving to pull up a chair next to the one that was already by his bed, which she guessed was the one Lucas had been occupying before he’d gone out into the hall. She sat down now, catching his eye and tipping her head as though to say ‘come sit now.’ He came and sat next to her at once.

“How did you know I was here?” the man looked at her now, possibly setting aside any concern over her education being interrupted for his sake.

“I… didn’t… not exactly,” she admitted. “We were all wondering why Lucas wasn’t there this morning. He wasn’t picking up any calls or replying to texts… Then I overheard Mr. Matthews talking, heard him say something about the hospital and his name,” she looked to Lucas. “Then I came here.” At her side, her boyfriend took up her hand again, and she smiled. Her face hardly showed the panic that had been going through her at the time, but it kind of went without saying by now.

This led to the two Friars telling her about the night before, how Pappy Joe had tripped and fallen down the stairs, the paramedics coming, going the ER, then getting up here to this room… Lucas had been here all night, had insisted on staying with his grandfather while his parents went out to see about retrieving some items from the man’s house, and seeing to options for his recovery. He was insisting that he could deal at home just fine, but Lucas’ father had already put his foot down that _his_ father would be convalescing at their home. They’d find a way.

“Maya, please take him down to the cafeteria and make him eat something? I haven’t been able to make him leave me long enough to have breakfast _or_ lunch now.”

“What if you need something?” Lucas shook his head.

“I have this button, and I’m not afraid to use it,” his grandfather presented said button, attached to his hospital bed.

“I haven’t had lunch either, actually,” Maya looked to her boyfriend. “Come on… we do need to have a talk, don’t we?” she stood up, holding out her hand to him. He let out a breath, turning a glance to his grandfather, who did his best to nod at him and tell him to go.

“Okay,” he finally got up. He moved to his grandfather’s bedside, giving his hand a squeeze. “Be back soon.”

“I’ll be right here,” the man chuckled. Maya moved up to him next, leaning over to plant a kiss at his cheek. “There, all better,” he laughed again.

“Behave,” she squinted at him. He pressed his good hand over his heart.

“Yes, ma’am. Go on, go,” he practically shooed them out of the room, so they went, hand in hand once again, to a meal and a long needed talk.

TO BE CONTINUED


	290. His Fear For Them

It still all felt like it ought to be a dream. The last… more than half a day… had been a total blur, really. From the moment he’d heard that crash and the shouting, to the arrival of the paramedics, the trip to the hospital, and the whole night and morning following that… And then to have Maya show up the way she did, and the reconciliation between them, now well underway…

If he couldn’t feel the warmth of her hand in his – because neither of them really seemed willing to let the other’s go – he would have really started to ponder the possibility that this was all a dream.

But it _was_ real, the good as well as the bad. Here they were, the two of them, walking through the hospital cafeteria, gathering up something to eat before moving to sit at a table. They sat side by side, not across from one another, and that was how much they couldn’t bear to be too far from one another. They were silent at first, maybe not so much because they didn’t know what to say (although there was a little of that as well) but because this was the first time in over a week that they could even be next to each other like that and actually feel at peace.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” she finally broke that silence, asking the question that had remained unanswered the night before, she now knew, after he’d been made to dash away from his phone following his grandfather’s fall. He looked at her now, letting out a breath. She didn’t need to specify any further, he knew what she meant.

“It sounds weird, but I really didn’t realize it was even bothering me that much or… at all, until… the fight. I think the whole time I kept telling myself that you were happy and that was all that mattered to me, but… then I realized maybe it wasn’t that clear cut. I… I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did,” he shook his head, staring back at her with eyes full of apology. She bowed her head at this, nodding, understanding. “All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy, Maya.”

She looked back up to him, eyes brimming with tears but also smiling. His response to this came like a reflex, just leaning forward and lightly kissing her lips. She kissed him back, both of them caught up for a moment in this first kiss since before… When they pulled back, he had this shy look on his face like he wasn’t sure he was supposed to do that, and she laughed, hands reaching to hold his face, forehead pressing to his.

“I would have done something if I’d known,” she told him. “But that’s not… I’m not… I should have seen it, and I didn’t, and I’m so sorry… I just got so caught up in everything and…”

“I know,” he promised, his hand shadowing hers. She beamed, kissing him again.

“From now on, you tell me if something’s bothering you, and I… I’ll be more careful. We’ll just… we’ll make a schedule,” she declared. His face scrunched up, amused. “Okay maybe not, I mean spontaneity’s important, too.” He nodded. She let out a breath. “It gets so complicated, all these things and… I took the most important one for granted.”

“Most important, huh?” he had to smile at that, and she gave him a look of affirmation. “I’ll take it. I mean, that’s what you are to me, too… which is pretty much how we ended up in this situation on my end of it, isn’t it? And then after the fight, I didn’t know what to say or do, I didn’t want to make it worse.”

“Same,” she admitted. “It’s those father issues again, isn’t it?” she tried to laugh it off, though it didn’t really work, landing flat instead, though he took hold of her hands at this, holding them both between the two of them, facing each other in their seats.

“I had a whole list of things to say back home,” he told her, and when she looked up at him, a small smirk creeping up on to her face, he counted himself successful in his attempt to pull her out of that potential tailspin.

“Can I see it?” she asked.

“I only got to stay here this morning because I promised I’d go back home when my parents came back, so if you want to hang out, I could show it to you,” he suggested, and she nodded. “Although… does anyone know you left school like that?”

She opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again, realizing for the first time that she’d basically skipped out of class. Technically speaking it was still lunch time and, if she left before long, she could make it back in time for her afternoon classes, but… she couldn’t see herself leaving him here on his own.

After a moment, she made up her mind, pulling out her phone and calling up her mother. She didn’t cut corners, telling her exactly what had happened, from mistakenly assuming that Lucas was the one in the hospital as a patient, to discovering he was a visitor only, and then the reconciliation, and now the need to stay by his side. Her mother agreed to call in to school and excuse her absence, although she backed it up with the promise of ‘consequences,’ which Maya saw as extra chores more than a grounding.

“There,” she breathed out after she’d hung up. “My schedule’s just opened up.” He smiled. They still needed to figure some things out, the going forward part, both of them having learned from the fight and from this long-needed talk. But here they were now, as close to who they were meant to be as ever, broken hearts healed, of all places, in a hospital.

TO BE CONTINUED


	291. His Fear For None

They might have stayed down in the cafeteria longer, or just hung around somewhere else, just the two of them, but the thought of Lucas’ grandfather lying in that hospital bed on his own did take some precedent. So instead they made a detour to the gift shop before getting back on the elevator to the third floor. When they walked back into his room, they found him attempting to read a magazine someone had left him, which was proving to be some work with only one good arm and an immobilized neck.

“Need a hand?” Lucas asked him.

“I could do with one or two,” Pappy Joe admitted. “How was lunch?”

“Chicken and potatoes and carrots,” Maya reported. “And cake.”

“Didn’t happen to bring me some of that, did you?” the laid out grandfather asked, his tone showing how little he thought of the meal he had been provided, which still sat on a table nearby, in wait of someone to help him with it. Lucas moved at once to bring it closer to him, while Maya set to raising him up in his bed as much as his situation would allow.

He did not do well with having to be helped to eat, but after Maya pointed out that he would very likely drop stuff on himself if he went at it alone and would need to be changed afterward, he let out a sigh and allowed his grandson to be in charge of utensils.

“You two sure look more cheerful, does that mean everything’s back on track?” he asked, between bites. Lucas chuckled, Maya smiled.

“Yeah, I think that… as scared as we were about losing each other… we came out on the other side stronger,” she declared, looking to Lucas to find him with that swell of joy in his eyes that sent her heart trilling.

“Well, that’s more like it,” Pappy Joe told her, looking like he might have been trying to nod along, though it proved to be something of a difficulty in his current situation.

The meal went along as well as it could be expected to, with the way they were set up. Pappy Joe was not shy to share his opinions on the food he was offered, though he ate it all in the end, no spills. After this, the table was pulled back and the two visitors took to their chairs, presenting one of the items they’d gotten from the gift shop, which was a book of crossword puzzles.

They’d gotten a deck of cards, too, but going by how lunch had gone, they made something of a silent decision to hold off on those for the time being.

For a while after that, they worked at the crosswords, Lucas reading the clues to his grandfather, Pappy Joe pondering them for a moment before giving an answer, which Maya would pencil in. Lucas had been the one to tell her to go with that over the pen, to save them both a lecture on pen versus pencil in crosswords from his grandfather.

Eventually, they were told by a nurse to let the man rest, so while he slept, Lucas and Maya broke out the deck of cards and sat facing each other with the wheeled table in between them, playing cards in silence. This did not stop them – Maya especially – from making greatly exaggerated gestures of victory whenever she made a good play, or of frustration when something didn’t work out. It was a miracle they managed to keep quiet the entire time.

“I think he’s awake,” Lucas whispered to her after their second game.

“Let him sleep,” she whispered back. “Pretend like you didn’t see.”

“One of you might want to see about a nurse, unless you want to be the ones to help with… well…” a barely awake voice alerted them from the bed.

When the nurse came around, the two of them excused themselves from the room, telling Pappy Joe that they would go out for air and be back in a few minutes.

Stepping out into the January air after having been inside the hospital for over half a day, Lucas let out a breath, the relief being simply beyond words. Taking that first lungful of air, expelling it again, he could hear Maya chuckling at his side and he looked down to her.

“I’m really glad you’re here right now,” he told her. “Not just because we finally talked, but…”

“I know,” she promised him.

They started walking, circling the vast perimeter of the hospital as they went. They were just about halfway around, as far as they could tell, before Maya had a thought that made her smile.

“What?” Lucas asked, seeing it.

“Just reminded me of that night, running around the school to wake ourselves up when we did that live art performance,” she explained. Now he was smiling, too, remembering the night.

“Guess it’s kind of like that, yeah,” he agreed with a nod. “Except we’re sitting in a hospital room instead of standing very still with paint over our faces or arms. Although one thing hasn’t changed.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“That night, the way I was standing, I was looking at you the whole time and it did… things… to my heart, getting to look at you, like it does now,” he told her, bringing her hand, wrapped in his, up to his lips. She smiled, blushing just enough that she couldn’t have blamed the cold.

“Maybe… my subconscious wanted you to look at me when I made that painting,” she grinned as they went on walking to complete their circuit before returning to Pappy Joe.

“If it’s anything like mine, I’m sure it did,” Lucas told her. Part of him really felt like he should have been more stressed, being in the hospital with his grandfather, seeing how hurt he was, but they already knew he would recover well enough, so could he be blamed for being happy to have his girlfriend back at his side?

TO BE CONTINUED


	292. His Fear For Losses

He didn’t have to put into words just how much it meant to him to have her here, now, with him, to feel the constant hold of her hand, to know she was near and he wasn’t alone, and to know that they were going to be okay. He just had to keep holding her hand, or looking at her… and she knew.

Before she’d shown up, all of the previous night, and the long hours, leading up to the moment when he spotted her scampering through the hall, he had been a wreck. Circumstances had pushed their situation to the background as he’d come upon the sight of his grandfather, sprawled out at the bottom of the steps, limbs at wrong angles, blood in some places…

He hadn’t lost consciousness, at least not to anyone’s knowledge, even though he swore he’d lost a few seconds there upon landing. He didn’t remember that part. For Lucas, all that he had seen before him had indicated the possibility he might be losing his grandfather, and for a while after that, through the arrival of paramedics, the ride to the hospital, and the time in the ER, that was still going on. He was trying so hard to keep it together, not to break in front of his parents, but inside it was all turmoil.

Eventually they had been told that he would be alright, even though his recovery would be long and arduous – which his grandfather had assured anyone who would listen wouldn’t be the case – he would come on the other side of it for the most part unchanged. He would live, that was all that mattered in that moment. Even so, seeing the state of him, it would make his heart feel like it didn’t sit right in his chest.

It made him fidgety, like he needed to be doing something. The problem with being in a hospital, with that thought in his head, was that there really wasn’t that much _to_ do, except to sit, and wait, and try not to fall asleep.

But then she’d come, and the moment he’d seen her it had felt like a jolt of wakefulness in him. Then she’d embraced him and he’d forgotten all his exhaustion. She was here… they were together… they were alright, or they would continue to be.

And Maya Hart, in a situation like this, was a whirlwind… just the kind of whirlwind the Friar men needed. She had gotten food in him, she had found ways to keep both of them entertained… Lucas wasn’t the only one to benefit from her presence. He had seen his grandfather, all through these last several hours, before she’d come.

He would put on a brave face, because that was what everyone expected of him, but Lucas could see how he didn’t do so well with being at the center of attention in this particular fashion. He didn’t like that he needed help with everything, and if he didn’t keep it together he might say things he didn’t mean. But then Maya… She was as tough as he was, and the two of them seemed to balance each other out that way. She understood what he needed and she provided it.

She was a miracle… but then he’d already known that, every day he’d known her.

The words had come so easily, when they’d been in the hospital cafeteria. All week long they had struggled, but now… In just a few minutes, they had cleared away all the rubble of the past week. They would go forward now, grown from the experience, the best they could have hoped for.

Now here they sat, returned from their walk to find that his grandfather had gone back to his nap. They sat back at their table, the cards shuffled once again and dealt between them. Maybe it was the walk, the peacefulness of it all, but they didn’t feel so into the game this time around. Before long they more or less abandoned it. He got up, moving to the small couch in the corner, and after a moment she came along and sat with him, head to his shoulder as he put his arm around her.

“We’re going to fall asleep if we stay like this,” he whispered.

“I don’t mind,” she whispered back, smiling. “Besides, you need your rest, too, don’t you? How much did you sleep last night?”

“Maybe an hour somewhere,” he recalled. They had been fortunate – if they could call it that – in how the whole thing had unfolded. They had been able to stay with his grandfather in the ER, and by the time he was transferred to his room up on the third floor, visiting hours had started, so they’d been able to stay with him the whole time.

“Then maybe falling asleep isn’t such a bad thing, is it?” she pointed out. “Come on, close your eyes,” she instructed, resettling against him. He smirked, but finally he did as he was told. He adjusted his position, too, and then he closed his eyes, trying to shut out the ambient sounds of the hospital and instead focusing on the feeling of her, resting with him, on the feeling of her breath rising and falling, like she was calling for him to match her.

Slowly, or maybe faster than he knew, he started to drift off to sleep, his thumb absently sweeping up and down on her arm, his other hand captive in both of hers. Eventually he fell asleep, and for the first time in over a week he had dreams in his sleep, good dreams, of him and her together, happy, their would-be future restored to them. All his worries over his grandfather seemed to have finally aligned to what the doctor had been telling them. Everything would be fine, everyone would be fine.

TO BE CONTINUED


	293. His Fear For Silence

For some time, Maya was the only person awake in the room, which was honestly just fine by her. It wasn’t as though she would have chosen a hospital room as the location for her total reconciliation with her boyfriend, but here she was, and she could not have been more at ease, squeezed on to this small couch. There she sat, with her head somewhere between heart and shoulder against Lucas, his arm wrapped around her, feeling and hearing his slumbering breath rise and fall in him.

Between this and the silence of the room, the inexplicable sort of heaviness that seemed to live in hospital air, it should have been beckoning for her to fall asleep, too, but all she could feel in that moment was a total wakefulness, one she hadn’t felt in days. Lucas, who had been up for a whole day before being forced into being up most of the night and the morning that had followed, he’d _needed_ that sleep. But she had slept her night’s sleep, and now… now she wanted to be awake, so she was.

All week long, it had felt like she knew what was holding her back, whether or not she’d let herself own up to the fact. She was getting to feel like she’d grown into someone who had difficulty with the idea of blame. She’d spent all those years, blaming herself for something that wasn’t her fault, and now here she’d been, unable to admit to herself that for once it had actually sort of been partly her fault if someone could have been lost to her.

They would be better now, they both knew it. They had faltered, but they were rising again, and that was the important part.

As she very carefully pulled her phone from her pocket, to look at the time, she found that the afternoon was drawing to a close. Their friends would be getting out of school by now. She had several texts piling up, all of her friends wondering where she’d disappeared off to at first, and then suddenly appearing to know exactly where she was. Going by the time _those_ had come in, she had a feeling Mr. Matthews had said something to them about Pappy Joe at the start of his class.

She sent one text through their group chat before she could put the phone away. _With Lucas, all’s well._ That was the truth, wasn’t it? She smiled to herself as she put the phone back in her pocket.

When the nurse came in to check on Pappy Joe, Maya closed her eyes, pretending to sleep, though her ear remained trained, in case she might have said anything important. She wasn’t sure why she’d seen the need to pretend like that, but she’d done it.

The nurse hadn’t said anything, and she’d gone on her way in time. Maya didn’t open her eyes right away. This was just nice, and who knew, maybe she _would_ fall asleep.

When she felt Lucas’ thumb stroking at her arm again, she finally did open her eyes, turning them up to discover that he had woken up again.

“Hey…” she whispered. “Get back to sleep,” she insisted.

“Not now,” he whispered back.

“You need it,” she told him.

“I need to look at you more,” he bargained. She made a face like she was pondering this.

“Alright, that’s fair,” she joked, and he smiled, leaning to press a kiss to her forehead. She pushed herself a little higher at that, making it easier for him to see her… and for herself to see him, both of them with shining eyes, filled with the glow of their reunion.

Time and again there had been situations that came along, ready to try and pull them apart. In the end it never worked, sure, but that didn’t make the time in between any easier. After the hell they’d gone through with the accident, the longest they’d been forced apart, she had never wanted them to go through anything like that again. Was it any wonder that the fight had hurt so much then?

“I love you so much…” she whispered, barely audible, more like a thought willed into words. In the pin drop silence of the room, with the two of them held so close to one another, he heard her just fine, and the words echoed from him in that same private whisper. The feelings expressed in that moment, had they taken place anywhere else but where they were at the moment, in his grandfather’s hospital room, might have led to something more, but for now the knowledge alone was enough.

Slowly but surely, he allowed himself to fall asleep again, either that or he was genuinely too tired to stay awake. Maya resumed her quiet cuddling against him as she realized this. His parents should be arriving soon, by all accounts, and they might be leaving here. She didn’t know if it would be too late, if she’d have to head on home instead of staying with him, with them. Well, she was here now, so that was what would matter.

In the end, the peace carried her off into sleep, too. She wasn’t sure for how long, only that at some time she opened her eyes again and realized that they weren’t alone. She could hear voices talking in hushed tones, and after a short beat she realized who those voices belonged to. Lucas’ mother and father… and _her_ mother and father. They were all here.

When she turned her eyes and finally found the four of them, she could see them standing and sitting around one another, talking… If there had been any awkwardness passed on to them in the time of the fight, it didn’t look like there was any trace of it left. Her parents had come along bearing flowers and a few other treats for the ailing Pappy Joe, and now they were talking with his parents like old friends again. Maya smiled to herself, closing her eyes to pretend she still slept, leaving the rest of them to talk.

TO BE CONTINUED


	294. His Fear For Naught

For a moment as he woke up, he didn’t remember where he was or why. He had been caught up in a dream that either felt too real or just real enough that there was simply no way that he’d willingly leave it, and as he woke up still with his girlfriend there at his side, in his arms… how could he be expected to realize he was actually awake? Only as seconds went along and everything really started to feel more… well, real… did he slowly start to remember.

Pappy Joe, the hospital, Maya, the talk… She’d gotten him to get some sleep, pressed next to him on the small couch, and he _had_ slept, and he did feel so much better. He didn’t want to ever have to move, but he felt better.

It took a few seconds more to realize that the sun had gone down… and that they weren’t alone. He could hear his mother… his father… Pappy Joe… and Maya’s mother… and her father, too. Looking down, he could see Maya was still asleep, and he would have left her to keep on sleeping, but his movement must have jostled her awake because in that moment she opened her eyes, too, blinking, yawning. She looked up at him and he smiled.

“Welcome back, you two,” his father spoke, and both Lucas and Maya looked over to him and, in consequence, the rest of them, who were also staring back at them.

“Hey…” Maya gave a small wave. “What time is it?”

“Almost time to go,” her mother replied. “We were about to wake you up.”

Lucas guessed it was better off this way, getting to leave without being ushered out because visiting hours were over. After wishing his grandfather a good night, he followed his parents and Maya and hers out of the room, the six of them making for the elevator, down from the third floor and on their way toward the parking lot.

“Are you going to be in school tomorrow or are you going to be here again?” Maya asked as they went.

“Oh, school,” he revealed. “I’ll come and see him again tomorrow when we get out of there.”

“Mind if I tag along?” she asked with a smile that showed plainly how much of a non-question that was. Of course, she could tag along.

“Knowing him, I’m not even sure he’d let me in if I _didn’t_ bring you,” he joked, making her laugh. Oh, he had really missed that sound in the past week…

“So then that means that you’ll be going to school tomorrow morning…” she went on, and he knew what she was saying.

“I’ll be there,” he said simply, and he got another smile for it. They had both missed heading in to school together, somewhere in the turmoil of all the other things they were missing in that troubled week.

They got to the point where they both had to go their separate ways, and they turned to one another, sparing a look to their parents in so synchronized a way that it made them bite back a laugh before leaning in to kiss, once they’d established they had about as much privacy as they were going to get.

“Text me when you get home?” he whispered, and she nodded. He pressed one more kiss to the top of her head, as she pulled him in for one more hug, and then they stepped apart and followed their parents to their respective cars, leaving the hospital and heading on home.

Maya and her parents made a stop over at the Matthews house, picking up the twins from where they’d been left for the evening. While her parents were seeing to getting Nellie and Gracie from Topanga and setting them in their car seats, Maya made for the stairs to go and find Riley before being stalled by her teacher. Mr. Matthews wished to apologize, having realized too late that he might have alerted her sooner, sparing her that moment where she’d overheard him and jumped to conclusions.

“It’s alright, don’t worry about it… You probably did us a favor,” she gave him a smile, starting up the stairs before turning back and climbing back down. “Sorry about skipping this afternoon,” she added, her smile now carrying some amount of her own apology.

When she went up to find Riley, she told her best friend all about her afternoon and evening at the hospital, with Pappy Joe, but of course with Lucas, too. There was no need to confirm that the two of them had patched things up. All Riley needed was to see her face and she knew, and she was thrilled for the both of them.

Over at the Friar house, Lucas reached home, despite his nap and the comfort it had afforded him, feeling that pervading exhaustion still seeping in. He hadn’t been here in a whole day, more or less, and the last time he _had_ been here… He looked at the bottom of the steps, where his grandfather had laid when Lucas had come rushing out of his room to follow the noise. It was all cleaned up, his mother’s work no doubt, but the memory was still very much there in his mind’s eye, and it gave him a chill.

Climbing up to his room, he found his phone where he had left it. In the day since he’d gone, the last of his battery had spent itself, so he had to connect the phone before he could see what awaited him. Peeling back the layers, he first found well wishes for his grandfather from his friends, teammates, classmates… Then before that there was his friends’ messages, inquiring after his absence. There were Maya’s messages, text and voicemail both, seeking to locate him…

Then there was the last message from the night before, the one that had been left unanswered after he’d run to see to his grandfather. He looked to his desk, where his notes sat, abandoned, unused and no longer necessary. He remembered how she’d wanted to see them and he let out a breath, slipping the page into his schoolbag. Maybe he’d show it to her the next morning, when he went to pick her up.

It was a little while longer before she wrote him. She’d waited to get home from picking up her sisters, and in that time he had been able to send off replies to all those who’d written him throughout the day, showing that courtesy his mother had instilled in him for as long as he could remember.

_“You exhausted, too?”_ she wrote, and he smirked.

_“Like I could sleep for two days,”_ he replied. A moment later, the window popped up for a video call, and he connected them at once, finding her sitting back in her room. She looked like she’d just finished changing into her PJs, letting her hair down… “Maybe I don’t need to go and do that right _now_ though,” he smiled. She laughed, her hand moving to sweep her hair out of her way as she sat down with her phone.

“I was thinking the same thing. I was also thinking we might get a chance to sit and go through what we missed today tomorrow morning.”

“Sounds good,” he agreed, sitting, too. The brief silence that followed then was in no way like the silences they’d been dealing with over the past week. Before, they had been silenced by the anguish they felt, but now… now they were just taking in everything they’d gotten back, and they were happy and at peace.

“I was _also_ thinking…”

“Thinking about a lot of things, huh?” he smirked.

“Yes,” she squinted at him, never losing her smile. “After the hell week we’ve had, I think we’re due a capital D Date.”

“I like the sound of that,” he agreed at once.

“Figured you might,” Maya tipped her head. “Friday night?” she asked.

“Friday night,” he nodded. “Your plan?” he guessed.

“My plan,” she nodded. “I know you’re going to say I don’t need to, but I want to try and make up a bit for all those times we had to cancel and reschedule lately. Plus, I know this week is going to be a lot, with your grandfather and all, so some quality time with yours truly should be a good thing.”

“Always,” Lucas agreed.

“And if for some reason we have to change plans, if you need to be at the hospital, then we’ll figure things out. But we _will_ have our Date.”

They went on talking a little while, swapping anecdotes from the past week they might have already shared if they’d actually been talking. When the exhaustion finally wouldn’t be ignored any longer they said goodnight, promising to see one another bright and early in the morning for the journey to school and making up for their missed classes.

TO BE CONTINUED


	295. Her Care For Hospital Days

The weeks that followed Pappy Joe’s accident, the ones he was forced to spend in the hospital, formed something of a routine, for his family but also for others, Maya and the rest of Lucas’ friends included.

Weekdays, for the ones of them who still had school to attend, involved actually going to school, of course. Once the day was over though, whether it ended at last bell or went on a bit longer due to basketball or other such obligations, Lucas and Maya (and sometimes one or two or more of their friends) would take off for the hospital, to go spend time with Pappy Joe. They would be there until just after dinner, and then Lucas’ father would drive Maya home on the way out of the hospital.

On the weekends, it was something else. For the first weekend at least, both Lucas and Maya had called in sick to the museum and the diner respectively, the better to at least free up a few more hours to spend at Pappy Joe’s side. By the second weekend, knowing that he would understand, they had gone ahead into work. It didn’t prevent them from funneling a few of the free hours they _did_ have into quality time with their favorite recovering grandfather.

All in all, Pappy Joe was in a good mood, whenever they stopped by to see him. It never looked to them like he was putting on a show for them, to convince them that he was okay either. And going off of what they heard from the nurses, he was keeping everyone entertained whenever they _weren’t_ around.

“Once a Santa, always a Santa, huh?” Maya had teased him one day.

“Hey, now, you keep that to yourself, Hart, there are some things that are not meant to be heard outside that mall,” he’d pointed his finger at her, making her chuckle.

“Right, sorry, what was I thinking?”

Lucas and Maya would both be privy to the occasional complaint about one thing or another, from the meals to the constant demands on him when he was meant to be resting. On that alone they could just picture what things would be like when he was released from the hospital and placed into their care. Pappy Joe had insisted that he could get himself into some convalescent home, but his son wouldn’t have it, and neither would his daughter-in-law and his grandson.

He was coming home with them and they would look after him. He may have believed that would make a burden of him, but they wouldn’t have it.

Maya had been hearing a lot of the bits she hadn’t been there for, though the way Lucas was telling it, she could only guess he was telling her in confidence, knowing that she would keep it to herself. Everything he had been seeing of his parents as the days passed just showed him how much stress it was piling on to each of them, not only to see to Pappy Joe’s care but also to prepare for what would happen when he got out of the hospital and came home to them.

“You know how my mother gets when she’s stressed,” Lucas had told her one morning, the two of them headed to pick up Riley on their way to school.

“I’m familiar, yeah,” Maya didn’t know whether to smile or look apologetic.

“And then my dad, well he’s worried for _his_ father, you know? The two of them, they’ve been arguing a lot, disagreeing on what to do about him. Mom wants to hire him a nurse when he comes to our house. And Dad wants him to come, not just for his recovery but permanently. He’s afraid Pappy Joe won’t ever be as independent as he used to be after this. Then I made the mistake of saying he could have my room after I go to college and that got my mother started with remembering I’m about to graduate high school…”

“Oh no…” she was unable to keep from laughing a bit at that point, leaning to his arm.

The weeks going by had seen a lot of ups and downs in the saga of the Friar house and family, and Maya could only find herself feeling relieved by the thought that she was here to support Lucas throughout the whole situation. She was there for Pappy Joe, and for Mr. & Mrs. Friar, too, sure, but there was no pretending who she was there for the most.

She could see it in his eyes, in his touch… He was so glad to know she was there with him, too, and every time he would give her that sort of relieved little smile, it would melt her heart a bit more.

But now things were about to change. The big day they had all been getting ready for was finally coming. Pappy Joe would soon be discharged from the hospital. As long as his road to recovery would continue to be, he was doing and looking much better than he’d done on that first day back in January. As it was to be expected, he was the most anxious of all of them to finally be leaving the hospital. Maya still remembered how happy he’d looked, the first time they’d been able to take him as far as a few minutes out of doors, to breathe in fresh air.

They’d been counting down the days, Lucas and her. They had a whole plan together, to deal with the big move. Their entire mission was to ensure that no one lost their head when the day came. They would be Tom and Melinda Friar’s secret backup, ready to defuse any and all rising bit of frustration or confusion.

The countdown was hitting zero today. Pappy Joe was coming home. Maya was up with the sun, dressed and out the door in no time, ready to join Lucas in Operation Santa.

TO BE CONTINUED


	296. Her Care For a Homecoming

As they had planned, things started moving properly in the direction of their being able to get Lucas’ grandfather out of that room and out of the hospital, headed toward home. At that point, Maya left, moving on ahead toward the Friar house, to lend backup to Lucas’ mother, who had stayed behind, and also make sure she didn’t go overboard with whatever plans she may have had regarding Pappy Joe’s arrival.

This turned out to be a very beneficial choice. By the time Maya had made it to the house, she’d come upon Melinda Friar in the process of shopping contractors to expand the office they’d turned into a guest room on the ground floor. She talked her into hanging up the phone, reminding her that Pappy Joe’s room in his own home was even smaller than the office here, so it would do perfectly fine for him.

“You’re right, no, of course,” the woman told her with a nod, passing a smile to her. “I’m really glad you and Lucas have patched things up,” she added, pressing her hands to either of Maya’s arms before embracing her. The gesture took her by surprise, although really it shouldn’t have, coming from Melinda Friar. After a moment of getting over the surprise, she could only smile and hug the woman back.

“You and me both,” she told her.

Just like that, it seemed she’d been handed the way to prevent Lucas’ mother from spiraling out of control until the three generations of Friar men arrived. They just talked. Melinda was forever eager to hear about how things were going with school, with basketball, with her family and the band, too. Maya was only pleased to share it all. It reminded her how, for however much the woman could be seen as ‘a lot,’ she actually really liked her.

Lucas texted her when they were turning on to the street. When she told his mother about this, she looked ready to switch her hyper mode back on. Maya countered this by guiding her toward the door so they could go and wait for them.

By the looks of it, Lucas and his father had worked out exactly how to get Pappy Joe in or out of the car and to or from the wheelchair. There was complaining from him, and warnings for caution from Mrs. Friar, while Lucas and his father ignored both of them and directed one another. Maya held to the chair so it wouldn’t move, all the while trying not to start laughing at this whole comical sort of situation. Still, finally, they got the man into the chair.

“I’ll give you a hundred dollars to get me out of here right now,” Pappy Joe muttered, looking back at Maya. She smiled, turning his chair toward the house.

“It’s alright, we’ve got him, right, Lucas?” she called to the parents.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Lucas agreed, moving ahead of her as they wheeled into the house and toward the office-turned-bedroom.

“Want me to lock the door?” Maya asked her passenger, making him laugh.

They offered to transfer him to the bed, but he wanted to stay in the chair, so they left him there and sat on the bed, facing him.

“Is the room okay?” Lucas asked his grandfather as he and Maya watched the man take in his surroundings. From what Lucas had been telling her, Maya knew the decoration of the place had been something of a tug of war, tipping between the desire to create a space that would match its intended occupant’s tastes and the desire to create something much more decorative and aesthetically pleasing.

“Compared to what I’ve been staring at for the past few weeks, it’s paradise. But I tell you, I won’t be mad about getting back to my house in the end,” he admitted in reply.

“So, you _are_ going back to live at your house then?” Maya asked.

“Why wouldn’t I?” he pointed out with a shrug. “Once I’m back on my feet it’ll be good to be back in my own space. If I stayed here, we’d only get in each other’s way. No, I’ll be alright.”

“And while you’re not back on your feet yet?” Lucas inquired.

“Until then, I am putting the both of you in charge, alright? Tom, Mel, they mean well, but they’re driving each other crazy over this… not to mention me.” He said all this with enough of a smirk that they knew it was all in good humor, and it made the two of them laugh.

“Fine, just don’t think we’re going to go easy on you, especially with your physical therapy,” Maya told him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he tipped his head to her. “Hey, at least now I get to have front row seats to your games,” he added, looking to each of them.

“Think you’re up for it?” Lucas asked, trying not to sound too uncertain.

“Lucas, I’ve been cooped up in that hospital for so long I’m starting to forget what the world looks like. You bet I am up for some basketball.”

“He’ll be our lucky charm,” Maya decided. She was all for getting him down to the games, seeing him out there, waving a sign around. “Next time the band and I have a show, you totally get front row for that, too,” she told him.

“Deal,” he tipped his head, the jovial smile about him once again.

It was only going to be so long before their isolated trio was joined by Lucas’ parents, who wanted to ensure that their new house guest was settling in well. His appointed nurses made sure that it all went as smoothly as possible. One only needed to look at him to see that, aside from the discomfort and pain of his ongoing recovery, he was as solid as he had ever been. It was their job to remind anyone who didn’t see it, and they were going to do it like pros.

TO BE CONTINUED


	297. Her Care For Peace

The rest of the day felt in a lot of ways like more of what they’d been doing whenever they’d visit Pappy Joe in the hospital, only in a less static environment. They would sit with him, play games, talk, eat… and the hours would go by, a bit weighted but still progressing.

Maya remained there with the Friars all day, hardly feeling like a guest now and more like one more member of the family, and that was a strange and wonderful realization. By the time Pappy Joe turned in for the night, Maya and Lucas were finally able to retreat and have a moment to themselves. They spent it by sitting outside, in the backyard, huddled together in the chill and looking to the stars.

“I’m so tired, can’t I just stay here with you?” she mumbled, burrowing herself against his side like if she worked at it hard enough they wouldn’t be able to pry her away if they tried. “Call it special circumstances or something, we’re on the clock and all that.”

“Won’t get any arguments from me,” he smiled, tipping his head to rest over hers. “Your parents might have something else to say about it though.”

It would have been hard to decipher whatever the sound she made right then could mean, but he was pretty sure it translated somewhere along the lines of ‘oh _that_ again.’ It did sort of feel like they were on the last legs of their parents getting a say in any of that, in the months leading up to graduation.

“I _could_ call them, say you fell asleep and I put you down on the couch and didn’t want to wake you up,” he suggested.

“Sounds like a plan,” she yawned, her face settling into a smile. He turned his face down at that, kissing the top of her head. It was settled, she was staying.

Things had been so much better for them in the past few weeks, which sort of felt weird to say, seeing how they’d been caught up in the exhausting back and forth of looking after his grandfather. But then after the fight, and the conversation that had resolved it, it had willed them both to consider their present situation and how to best adjust their behavior moving forward.

The biggest thing had been to figure out how to take the undeniable push forward that the band was continuing to experience and balance it with their relationship without either of them losing touch. They did their best to be honest with one another, not to keep any feelings bottled in, no matter how it might sound. If there was anything to be done, it would be done, and that was that.

Maya, for her part, had been doing her best to look at the time she had available and ensure that however she chose to distribute it, Lucas wouldn’t get lost in the shuffle. It wasn’t as though she’d wanted him to feel as though he was, at any point in the last several months, but it _had_ happened, and she couldn’t let it happen again, not to him, not to them.

And it had been working. Better still, it wasn’t just that it made either of them happier – which it did – it also made the both of them feel like they were functioning at their very best, together and apart. Maya knew that, for her part, somewhere deep down she had known herself to be overwhelmed in those weeks where she wasn’t paying attention the way she should have been, and it would create this feeling of chaos in her head.

But now… now that everything had been untangled, she was back on top of things, and there were no more obstacles in her path.

“Maya, sweetheart, would you like me to drive you home?” Lucas turned as he heard his father’s voice, finding him standing just outside the back door.

“Uh, she…” he looked back down to his girlfriend. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing evenly. “She’s asleep,” he reported, looking back to his father. “I think we should just settle her down on the couch or something, no point in waking her up.” His father looked at him, at the sleeping blonde, then let out a sigh and nodded.

“I’ll call her parents and let them know.”

After he walked back into the house, Lucas looked down to Maya again. He whispered, trying to see if she’d only been pretending to sleep, the better to enact their plan, but it didn’t take long for him to establish she was genuinely sleeping. He smiled, carefully moving to stand without disrupting her. Picking her up was easy, and he carried her back into the house, toward the living room couch.

His mother must have been informed already of their unplanned house guest. By the time Lucas reached the living room, his mother had already laid out a pillow and blankets so that he was able to set Maya down and get her covered up with ease. Leaning in to kiss her goodnight, he went upstairs to his room. It was only there that he remembered that there were two single beds in his room and they could have put her in the other one, but maybe that would have been pushing their luck.

It wasn’t long that he was in his own bed and out like a light, too. This had been a good day, all in all. They had all been so looking forward to his grandfather finally getting out of the hospital, coming home… It would take some time for them to settle into this new routine, but he was confident that they would find their way. Then of course he had Maya at his side, and it was an unshakeable truth that he always felt that much more sure of himself when she was there with him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	298. Her Care For Joining

Lucas woke up the following morning, feeling just a bit like he’d been having a very vivid dream. One way or another, he sat up in his bed for a moment, yawning, rubbing sleep out of his face, before getting up and starting what was repetitive enough to be called his morning routine. It wasn’t until he got to the point where he walked on down the steps to the ground floor that he remembered two things.

One, he could faintly hear the television they’d put in his grandfather’s room, and he remembered that Pappy Joe was home from the hospital.

Two, he stalled just outside the living room, seeing Maya asleep on the couch. She’d stayed here last night. How had he forgotten that?

She was all curled up there, looking even tinier than usual on the big couch, the blanket tucked well around her neck, her face well into the pillow. She didn’t look about to wake up, and he wasn’t aiming to disturb that, so he crept quietly over to his grandfather’s room, peering through the door.

His grandfather sat up in his bed, staring at the television, until he spotted him at the door and turned to look at him. Lucas looked back over his shoulder toward the living room before walking into the room proper and shutting the door as quietly as possible.

“Morning,” he spoke just as quietly. “Did you sleep okay?”

“No more beeping, no more nurses? And this bed here? Like a baby,” Pappy Joe reported, tapping the mattress. When they’d been setting up the room, the easy solution seemed to be to bring the spare bed from up in his room, but his parents had just gone ahead and gotten him a new bed, one that would articulate much like the one he had at the hospital. “Only woke up once to go to the bathroom,” he gestured toward the door.

“On your own?”

“I mean for a second there I wondered if your mom went and put some nanny cam in to check on me in the night, but she wasn’t the one who came in to help me out of bed.” It took Lucas a moment to understand who he was talking about. He looked over his shoulder again, as though he could see her right through the wall. “That girl of yours is stronger than she looks, tell you that,” Pappy Joe chuckled. “Would have faceplanted if it wasn’t for her.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Lucas smiled to himself. Maybe he should sleep down in the living room for the next little while, once his grandfather didn’t have someone already down here by chance anymore.

“Now I don’t want the two of you fussing over me today. You take her and go have some fun somewhere, alright? Go to my house, get my car…” Lucas looked up at him, and his grandfather let out a breath. “You still haven’t done it in all that time, have you?”

“I-I did… sort of…” Lucas shrugged.

“With just you and her in the car?” his grandfather specified, and Lucas frowned to himself. Even after all this time, even knowing the accident wasn’t his fault, there was still this feeling in him, of panic, of uncertainty, like he wasn’t supposed to do this, not with her… like it would happen again, and end up worse, too.

He had driven a few times since the previous summer, though usually on his own and especially never with her there. He had been working toward it though, even if his own car was a goner and he had no money to spend on something like that, especially with their Europe trip coming up. In the past few weeks, when he’d still been in the hospital, his grandfather had several times offered for him to borrow his car, to the point where Lucas had been carrying the keys in his pocket for just as long.

“I will, at some point,” he scratched at the back of his head.

“I’m sure you will,” Pappy Joe replied, though his tone said something more like ‘don’t wait out.’ He let out a breath, the image of his girlfriend sleeping back on that couch flashing through his mind.

“I’m really glad you’re staying with us right now,” Lucas told his grandfather.

“Well, it’s only temporary,” he reminded him.

“I know,” Lucas nodded, “It’s just…”

He bowed his head for a moment, the words failing him. All these last few weeks, every day had been about moving forward, about getting him to this point where he was out of the hospital, on his way to full recovery, and that was what they’d done, but now that he _was_ out of there, and he was safe, now that the pace seemed to be able to slow down some, it also meant that he was able to own up to some feelings he’d been holding back all this time. The fear… the great, immeasurable fear…

“Hey, come on now,” his grandfather spoke up, like he’d just read his mind. “It’s going to take a lot more than that to keep your old Pappy down, alright?”

“We don’t know that, do we? Anything can happen, anytime… one night you’re at a party with your friends and you crash your car… one night you’re at home with your family and you fall down the stairs… What’s next?” His shoulders sagged again.

“Lucas, come over here now,” his grandfather held out his arm, waved him over. After a beat, he obeyed, coming to sit at the edge of the bed. “This is just who you are in your heart, son. It’s who you’ve always been. You care so much for the people in your life, and that is one of the things that makes me so proud to call you my grandson. You just… you can’t let it hold you back, can’t let your fears weigh you down. You’re too young for that,” he smiled at him, hoping to perk him up.

Lucas looked at him, tried to take his words in, really keep them in. His grandfather was right, of course he was, but sometimes he just didn’t know how to move from knowing that truth and applying it to himself. But he had to… somehow, he had to.

TO BE CONTINUED


	299. Her Care For Helping

It was not the first time she woke up on the Friar couch. Other times, she might have fallen asleep while watching a movie, or drifted off after a particularly exhausting basketball practice. It was the first time she woke up with a pillow and blanket, spending the entire night there… most of the night.

The first time she’d woken up, it had taken her a moment to remember where she was and how she’d gotten there. The last she recalled, she’d been sitting outside with Lucas. She never remembered making the trip from there to here, but she could only guess, and it made her smile to imagine it.

What had woken her up, in that moment, had been noises, specifically a mix of grunts and squeaking metal sounds, like someone struggling. Getting up from the couch, it hadn’t taken her long to figure out where the noise was coming from, and she’d gone in to find Pappy Joe in the process of getting out of bed and looking on the verge of falling right out of it. She’d hurried over and helped him.

Mercifully for both of them, she’d been able to wait outside the bathroom once she’d gotten him up to that point, before helping him back to his room and his bed. He had thanked her profusely, the two of them sharing a conspiratorial smile before she went back to the couch and settled in again. Now that she was actually awake and aware, it felt very likely to her that she might not fall asleep again so easily. Sure, she wasn’t a kid anymore, but there would always be this feeling, when sleeping at someone else’s house, like she was in a prime position for curiosity…

She must have been more tired than she’d anticipated, as her curiosity remained unexplored and she’d fallen asleep again. The next time she woke up, soft morning sunlight was streaming into the Friars’ living room. She was warm and at ease, and she could just hear the faint sound of television nearby, in Pappy Joe’s room.

Standing again, in the clothes she’d been wearing the day before, she could only stretch, and try to straighten herself up, before starting toward the room as quietly as she could. Maybe he’d turned it on but fallen asleep again, or…

“Well, well, if it isn’t Hercules Hart,” Pappy Joe’s voice greeted her arrival. She smirked. “Sleep alright?” She nodded. “Your boyfriend’s been dispatched to get us all breakfast before Mel gets it in her head to try and feed the whole street.”

“Bold of you to think she’s not in there cooking already,” Maya whispered, though she frankly didn’t think Mrs. Friar was in the kitchen. She would definitely have heard her if she was.

“Fair enough,” Pappy Joe laughed at that. “So, you kids working today?”

“Yeah, but not until later,” she told him. Truth be told, until they’d known for sure that he was getting out of the hospital when he was, she’d been supposed to have band practice with Riley and Nadine. She’d postponed it once they’d known he _was_ getting out yesterday, though the others would probably carry on without her. “Probably gonna have to head home and shower and change first,” she looked down to herself.

“Probably best,” he nodded.

“But until then… breakfast, and maybe a stroll through the neighborhood?” she offered him. “Some fresh air…”

“Not saying no to that, not after the time I spent in that place,” he gestured to something distant and clearly disliked. She smiled.

“Good, then it’s settled.”

It was strange to explain how she’d gotten to feel in the last few weeks, where this man was concerned. He was not _her_ grandfather, but in the time that she’d known him he had taken her into his family so wholly, just as his son and daughter-in-law had done. Still, it wasn’t until now, until this whole situation had come along that Maya had realized maybe she had underestimated the place he’d come to hold… like to some extent he _was_ essentially her grandfather, and the thought that they could have lost him…

For so long she had never been able to imagine herself part of a family beyond herself and her mother. But then there had been Shawn, and her sisters, and her siblings in New York… And there were all her friends, and Lucas… and there were the Friars. They had taken her in as one of them, and she couldn’t see herself without them anymore.

“You alright there, Herc?” She looked up, blinking for a moment before chuckling.

“That’s going to stick, isn’t it?” she asked him. He gave an innocent sort of ‘maybe’ shrug. “Let’s just keep it between you and me though. Deal?” she held out her hand to him. He gave it a shake.

“Our secret,” he agreed.

“What secret?” She looked back, just as the grandfather looked up. There stood Tom Friar.

“Can’t tell, it’s a secret,” Maya tipped her head with a smirk, making the man in the bed laugh. After giving a look of intrigue that made his resemblance to his son flare up something fierce, Mr. Friar went off to start the coffee, leaving his father and his son’s girlfriend to their secrets.

Before long, Mrs. Friar came down to join them, and Lucas returned with the breakfast he’d gone to fetch, and the five of them sat at the kitchen table. The tale of Maya’s middle of the night assist was relayed – without mention of the new nickname she’d earned for her troubles – along with the plan she and Pappy Joe had for Lucas and them to go on a walk after they’d finished eating. Maya felt that cheer in her heart again, that feeling of belonging among these people, an extended family she had been welcomed into by virtue of the love she shared with Lucas.

TO BE CONTINUED


	300. Her Care For Walking

With their breakfast done, Maya quickly set to this promised walk, just her and Lucas and Pappy Joe in his wheelchair. She remembered how much he had resisted the idea of being wheeled around in the beginning, back at the hospital. He wanted to go at it on his own. He _couldn’t_ not with his arm and everything, and so he’d eventually had little choice but to let them push the chair onward. As the weeks progressed and they went on like this, his complaints diminished to none.

Now that they were out of the hospital, much as they sought to move toward a return to his autonomy, they weren’t sure how this would all transpire, if he would push himself too much too fast. Good thing then that he had his trusty and self-appointed nurses, with their own private mission to ensure this did not happen.

“Right, all bundled up for this brisk morning stroll?” Maya intoned, as she and Lucas stepped back, taking in the appearance of their passenger, now dressed and covered up, complete with a blanket over his legs. This part seemed to trouble him the most, like it would make him look like an older man than what he actually was. “You look like some distinguished fella right here, doesn’t he, Huckleberry?” she looked to Lucas, who looked unsure whether or not it would be wise to speak.

“Distinguished, huh?” Pappy Joe couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Exactly,” Lucas agreed, the small nod giving him the look of someone who had decided to latch on to this response, marking it as the safest road.

So, off they went. Lucas started on pushing duty, with Maya walking alongside the chair until such a time as they decided to switch. There was no particular path or destination chosen. If anything, they would leave it up to Pappy Joe to decide.

As they went, Pappy Joe asked Maya about the band, what they were working on, if they had any new songs… He had been good about keeping up with all of it, which could be sort of surprising, strange but funny. Something about seeing him, in all his… Pappy glory… spout off song titles, song lyrics, and declaring his favorites, was almost too much for the girls, keeping them teetering on the edge of giggles.

“Oh, we got a new one, wanna hear?” Maya asked with a smile.

“Now what kind of question is that? Sing, girl,” he commanded with a tip of the head, and she laughed, stealing a look back to Lucas – and to the area around them, in case there were people who might have overheard – before starting to sing. They walked and rolled their way up two blocks before she reached the end of the song, which was met with enthusiastic applause from Pappy Joe.

“I slowed it down a bit here, not the same without the music,” she shrugged.

“Don’t go selling yourself short, Maya Hart, that was beautiful. Did you write that one?”

“How’d you know?” she asked, the smile still on her face from the compliment.

“You have a style of your own, any creator does. And when you sing your own songs, it shows in the way you perform it.” She had to hand it to him, that did make sense. “Is that what you’ve been scribbling in that notebook of yours, back at the hospital?”

“It was. I finally sent it to Smackle a week ago and she sent back the track with the music a couple days ago.” Most times, she would get to listen to the completed tracks for the first time with Riley and Nadine around her, but this time around she’d been at the hospital, having lunch with Lucas down in the cafeteria.

So, they’d listened together, one earbud each as he did his best to keep her from losing it as she heard the melody that brought her words to life. Naturally, this only made her exaggerate… just a bit. It had been one of her favorite moments in recent weeks, and looking back at him as they walked, she knew it had been the same for him, too.

They carried on walking, the two ‘drivers’ swapping positions after a while. They made it all the way to the park, where they ran into a couple of Pappy Joe’s friends. The three men got to talking, and so Maya and Lucas left them to carry on in peace for a few minutes, heading down to grab some coffees, which they brought back to the thankful trio.

Standing back with their own cups, Maya and Lucas watched Pappy Joe, smiling. More than being out of the hospital, sitting in the park with his friends was making him happy, which made _them_ happy in return.

By the time the two parties went their separate ways, it was just about lunch time, so they went on their way toward the diner again, this time with Pappy Joe, and they sat around a table, eating as Lucas’ grandfather told them stories of his youth with those men they’d just run into. The way he carried on, it didn’t seem as though much had changed with the decades. Those three could have been like any one of _their_ group of friends.

They had to split up after they’d finished. Lucas would take his grandfather home before heading to the museum, while Maya had to go home and shower and change before coming right back here to the diner. Still, before they split up, Pappy had thanked them both for the morning they’d shared, and they could only smile, assuring him that the pleasure was mutual.

“We can go again, tomorrow afternoon, deal?” Maya told the man, who met this agreement with a hand held out. She shook it with a grin and watched the Friars head off one direction before starting down the other.

TO BE CONTINUED


	301. Her Care For Pondering

In the week that followed, both Maya and Lucas discovered that things really didn’t slow down again just because Pappy Joe was home from the hospital. School would occupy most of their days, and what they had left over, if it wasn’t dedicated to homework, or basketball, or work, or the band, or home, was given over to looking after their ‘patient.’ They would take him on a walk, every day. All in all, the exhaustion didn’t properly sink in until about Thursday evening, where Maya once again fell asleep at the Friar house, which translated into a trip over to her house on Friday morning so she could freshen up.

That morning, he had driven the both of them to her house, in his mother’s car. It was the first time, just them in a car, since the accident, and even though they knew deep down it would have gone off without a hitch, the fact that it did… It did them both some good. They’d turned a page.

That afternoon as they came home from school, they were informed by their patient that they’d been given the evening off, well-earned. This might have signalled going out, but tired as they were, their night off translated into a lowercase d date, at his house, sat on the couch and watching movies… or trying to at least.

“Maybe we should hit pause on this,” he suggested, twenty minutes into the first one.

“Why?” she asked, looking up at him.

“We’ve watched enough movies together, I know how you get when you’re not into it, not because you don’t like it but because you’ve got something on your mind, or… you’re tired,” he nodded down to her. She sighed, relenting, and he turned the television off as she moved to sit up from where she’d been sitting/lying against him. “Hey, hang on,” he shook his head, scooping her back up close and making her laugh. “This part was fine.”

“No argument there,” she agreed, settling back in properly. “I was just going to try and make sure I didn’t fall asleep here… again. Two nights in a row, I might be pushing your luck.” He opened his mouth to reply but paused as he ran through her words again.

“ _My_ luck?”

“Surviving my dad,” she teased him, and he gave what he hoped didn’t come off like a nervous laugh. “Can’t help it though if I’m so tired… and comfortable… What’s a girl to do?” For a moment, she thought he might agree to let her sit up again, but he held his ground, held to her.

“I heard some of the others in our class started getting their letters from the colleges they applied to,” he told her, shifting the subject in a safe direction.

“Did they?” her eyes grew at this. “Who?”

“I don’t know, maybe I heard wrong,” he shrugged.

“Right…” she let out a breath.

It still seemed like yesterday that they’d all set about picking schools, sending off applications… But now here they were, and it _was_ still a bit early to hear, as far as she knew, but not so much that they would have much longer to wait before they did get answers, favorable or otherwise. Once those applications had been sent off, it had been easy to put the whole thing out of sight and out of mind until such a time as answers did start to come in. It wouldn’t be long before they had to pull it all back into sight and mind again.

It wasn’t so much the thought of going to college that was causing her to fret, so much as the implications and the choices… the separations. All of them, they’d made the decision not to discuss their options too much, for fear of influencing one another. Much as they cared for one another, they did care enough that they wanted everyone to get to do what they wanted to do, where they wanted to do it, even if it meant being taken from one another.

Maya had an important conversation in her near future, she knew… maybe a few of them. There was the issue of finding herself far from her parents and her sisters, or from Lucas… and then there was the band, the four of them split three-to-one at the moment but who knew what would happen once college came into the mix?

“New subject,” she shook her head, looking up at him, almost pleading.

“Pappy Joe wants me to take his car,” he told her. “For good. He wants to give it to me, says I’ll get better use out of it than him, so…”

“That’s good, isn’t it? For you, I mean… You wanted a new one, but you didn’t want to have to spend your savings.” She sat up this time, facing him, and he let her. “It was all good this morning, wasn’t it?” she asked, giving an encouraging smile.

“It was,” he confirmed. “It is,” he went on. “It’s just… It makes me worry… about him,” he admitted. Maya let out a breath, nodding. She understood what he meant, of course. Much as his grandfather had been recovering well enough, it was impossible to go and pretend as though he was anywhere close to what he’d been before all this had happened, and every little or big thing that would come and spell out change was enough to set them back to thinking… and worrying.

“Hey, he’s got us, remember?” she put her arms around his neck, drawing close again. He could only smile, looping his arms around her waist. “Intrepid nurses at his service.”

“We’re very helpful,” he agreed.

“Yeah, that’s us,” she nodded along. He kissed her at that, and one kiss led to another, and another… “Definitely not falling asleep now,” she spoke in one pause, feeling his smile in the next press of his lips.

“Makes two of us,” he chimed in at next breath.

It was almost to be expected that they should be interrupted by the arrival of some family member or another, though as they sank so low into the couch, when they heard Pappy Joe returning home, accompanied by his friends, the two of them just lay there, tangled together and quiet, until he’d gone into his room. When the door shut, they looked to one another with a barely contained laugh.

“Want me to drive you home?” he asked as they sat up. She let out a breath, running a hand through her long hair, reaching over to straighten up _his_ dishevelled hair.

“Probably a good idea,” she admitted. He stood up, offering out his hands. She took them, smiling, and he pulled her to her feet.

They climbed into his mother’s car, starting off at an easy pace on their way to her house. This was another ‘first’ for them, on the list of those things they needed to get back to after the accident, maybe the last one that remained, standing out for its remaining unchecked: driving… at night. She could tell he was nervous, much as he tried to hide it. She’d always known him to be a careful driver, for as long as he _had_ been driving, but this one might have been his most careful drive.

When they pulled up to her house and the car drew to a stop, she just watched how he let out a breath, as though telling himself ‘there, I did it.’ She didn’t call him on it, though she did lean over to place a kiss at his cheek. He turned to look at her when she started to move, which redirected her kiss to his lips, which was just fine on both accounts, and as she pulled back a couple inches they now shared a smile.

“Thanks for the lift, Huckleberry,” she whispered.

“You’re very welcome,” he whispered back.

“So, does this mean you’ll be driving us to school again from now on?” she wondered.

“I mean… I guess I could… But I did miss our walks,” Lucas admitted, and she smiled again. “Plus, isn’t it better for us to take public transportation?”

“When you put it like that, yeah, I think we better keep going the way we’ve been going. We don’t have much longer of these mornings, do we?” He frowned, a trace of a wistful smile on him. “Another dollar for the pups, huh?”

“Feels like a full five,” he estimated.

“I’ll match that,” she laughed, leaning in to kiss him again. “I’ll be over early tomorrow for our walk with Pappy Joe,” she promised. “Night,” she leaned in to look at him through the window after she’d gotten out of the car.

“Night,” he replied, both of them feeling how that one word doubled as a reminder, an unspoken I love you. He waited until she’d gone through her front door before pulling back out on to the street, driving home.

TO BE CONTINUED


	302. Their Nearing of Answers

Much as it had started to feel like everyone was locked in this anticipation toward their responses from colleges, the start of March had made it clear that they had been nowhere near real nerves before. But now… now they were well in it. Plenty of them would be checking their phones in case a parent or sibling or other person back home might have written or called, to alert them about the arrival of an envelope, or they would leave at the end of the day with this strange bracing sort of look about them. Maybe there would be an envelope when they arrived back home…

Among their group, Lucas and Maya could see that anxiety start to seep in, too, with Nadine most of all, although whenever they checked in with Farkle or Smackle they knew the pair of them were just as hyper. Nothing could be done for it except to tell them that all would be fine, that they just needed to wait a bit longer. That only worked for so long.

“Should have seen Nadine in there today,” Maya told Lucas, almost as soon as she got into the car, when he picked her up from the diner one Saturday. He looked through the window, into the diner, in case he might be able to spot their friend. “She already left,” Maya shook her head, so they pulled away and started on their way to her house.

“What’d she do?” he asked.

“Far as I can tell, her sisters started asking if one of them could have her room after she went off to college, and that got her thinking that the reason she hadn’t gotten any responses yet was because they didn’t want her and she’d never actually go to college, I don’t know… Anyway, she showed up today and she was… well… let’s say short-tempered.”

“Right,” Lucas nodded. He didn’t want to laugh, but then he could picture exactly what that would have looked like and he knew that, once Nadine got her letters and all was well, she would probably laugh it off right along with them.

Where some of their friends might have been teetering on the edge with all this wait, the two of them had been doing alright. For the most part… Deep down, there was only so much to be done to hide the fact that this thing that would very likely shape their near future _and_ their distant future was about to come their way. Whether they would get into the programs they wanted to get into, the schools they wanted to get into, and where those schools would be, it would decide what happened next.

They could end up so far away from one another, so far from home, their families, their friends… They might not get to do what they’d imagined themselves doing… How could they _not_ freak out a little bit? But they weren’t going to do that, were they? Not now, no. The letters weren’t here yet, and until they were then nothing had to change.

“Pappy Joe’s looking forward to tomorrow?” she asked, making Lucas smirk.

“Oh, yeah,” he chuckled. “He’s got a shirt, he’s got his signs, he is ready.”

“Still can’t picture him in that shirt,” she giggled.

“I’ve seen it… you’re not ready,” he declared, making her that much more curious.

When they reached the house, they walked into chaos… sweet, adorable chaos. Nellie and Gracie Hunter, a handful of months away from their second birthdays, had been getting more and more active, playing around with the dogs, and by the looks of it the trio of Ghost, Queen, and Tuck were all for it. When Maya and Lucas walked in, the two toddlers and three dogs were chasing one another around the living room, squeals and barks ringing out everywhere.

“Finally,” Shawn breathed out when he saw them. He stood in the middle of the room right then, looking like he was trying to get control of the situation but didn’t know where to start. “Can you get the dogs in the basement, need to get the girls changed before your mother gets home.”

“I’ll take care of the dogs,” Lucas offered.

“Thanks, Doc,” Maya grinned, tapping his arm as her boyfriend moved to wrangle the dogs and direct them toward the basement door, while she went and scooped up the first of the twins she could get her hands on, which turned out to be Nellie. “This was your doing, wasn’t it?” Maya gave her squishy little cheek a kiss, delighting in the rolling giggles that came out of her little sister. She turned to their father as he picked up Gracie and started for the nursery. She followed after him.

Soon, the girls had been changed and were ready to head off to the Matthews house along with them, as soon as Katy got home. Maya stayed with her sisters, sat at the bay window, along with Lucas once he came back up from the basement. He now had Gracie in his arms, the quieter of the twins now casually playing around with the band on his wrist while he let her.

He knew that, as much as Maya was ignoring the matter for now, there was still very much the issue of where she would go and what it would mean for her and these two little ones, possibly growing up with their big sister living so far away, and whether or not she was ready to let that happen. It would all be about what mattered the most to her, wouldn’t it? One way or the other, he knew this much about Maya Hart, and it was that no matter which way she went she would find a way to do exactly what she needed to do, wherever she ended up doing it.

TO BE CONTINUED


	303. Their Nearing of Games

Sophie gave Maya a curious look when she watched her come into the girls’ locker room with a sort of downcast face, so Maya told her how she’d just gone to hand over another couple of dollars to Riley for the puppy jar because she’d realized, on the way over to the school, that they were getting closer and closer to their last games, not only for the year but for the whole of high school and, where she was concerned, the end of her run as an athlete.

After how long they’d fought to get the teams back for their school, they had finally gotten their victory, sure, but only for a year where she and the others of her year were concerned, and that year was fast coming to an end. She guessed she should be thankful that, unlike some others, she had gotten at least that one year, and that she should also be glad for others like Violet, and Heidi, and Tamara, who would get to play the whole four years here if they so wanted.

They just made such a wonderful team, the twelve of them, and she knew she was going to miss this so much, like she missed the old teams she’d been a part of.

“You’re not going to be moping throughout the game, are you?” Keilani joked, and Maya gave her a playful nudge.

“Not if we win,” she gave her teammate a nod, and the other girl gave a few energetic fist pumps to display that they would absolutely win if she had anything to say about it. “That’s the spirit,” Maya smirked. “Alright, let’s go!” she called to the rest of her team when it was time to head out and start the game.

Out in the stands, or at least at the bottom of the stands, Lucas sat alongside his grandfather, waiting. His parents, along with Maya’s parents and the rest of their friends not out there on the court that morning, were higher up in the stands, while Lucas stayed down here with his wheelchair-bound Pappy Joe. Looking at the man, all decked out and ready to cheer on Maya and the girls’ team, he could only smile.

There had been times growing up where Lucas had felt some uncertainties around his grandfather, like he needed to be more than what he was. But as he’d grown up, and maybe as his grandfather had grown up, too, he’d found that they’d gotten to this new place, the two of them. And he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

The girls’ game was a wild one. All of them out there, whether on their feet or on the bench, seemed imbued with this energy that made them just indestructible. Whatever it was, it was working; they were winning. Pappy Joe was more than carrying his weight of the cheering. When Lucas gave out his special call to Maya, his grandfather asked what that was about and, when he found out what it was, he requested that his grandson ‘give her one from me.’

They had won, as though there had been any doubt they would even before half the game had been played, and as it had done on more than one double game day, the energy of that win from the girls seemed to touch at the boys and make them that much more determined to win _their_ game, too, in the afternoon.

“What got into you guys this morning?” Dylan joked when all of them gathered together at lunch, and Maya told them about her realization earlier that day, the last days of her basketball career. By the end of the meal, Riley stood as custodian to twenty-one more dollars for the pup bowl.

Nostalgia or no, it seemed to work its magic for the guys, too. Now Maya was the one sitting at the bottom of the stands with Pappy Joe, and she couldn’t stop grinning, remembering how energized he’d been in his cheering that morning. She confirmed that Lucas had passed on the message about the one call that had been from his grandfather and she thanked the man for it. He followed this with a request that she put out one call from him to Lucas during the boys’ game.

There were plenty of occasions for her to let out a couple of calls to Lucas throughout that second game of the day. The boys were just as on fire as the girls had been. By the time the game ended, with another great win for their school, they knew that the coming week’s schooldays would come with many a reference to today’s two games, from players and non-players alike.

After a celebratory dinner, both teams and their families together, they all went on their separate ways to home. Maya watched Lucas wheel off with his grandfather, Pappy Joe still going on and on about the games, and especially about Lucas’ plays, and Maya’s, too.

When they came home, she went on ahead next door to retrieve her sisters. Their neighbor let her in to find the pair of them where she’d seen them on her approach, standing at the very tall windows and peering out. They turned at the sight of their favorite ‘Ya’, all smiles as she scooped them up.

“Oh, sweetheart, I meant to give you these earlier, when your mother dropped off the girls,” the old woman told her, showing her a small stack of envelopes, tied together with a rubber band. “The mailman must have dropped them off at the wrong door by accident, and I was at my sister’s until last night…”

Maya blinked, staring at the envelopes. Even stacked like this she couldn’t mistake what they were. Responses, from the schools she’d applied to… this was it.

TO BE CONTINUED


	304. Their Nearing of Departure

Monday morning rolled around, and Lucas showed up at the Hunter-Hart house as he would, early enough that he and Maya could take off together toward the Matthews house at something of a leisurely pace, the better to talk as they went. He arrived to find his girlfriend already planted on the front steps, waiting for him, and when she saw him coming she started down the path to come up and meet him halfway.

“Hey,” she smiled, rising on her toes to kiss him. He would have gladly locked his arms around her waist and kept the two of them in that embrace for a little while more, but then leisure or no they _did_ need to get going. So instead she settled back on her feet and they took off, hand in hand.

“You were all set to go, huh?” he commented. “Do you have anything you need to do before classes start?” he wondered.

“No, not really,” she shrugged. “I was just ready, you know how it is.” He wasn’t sure he did know, in this circumstance at least. He’d known her long enough to recognize ‘Maya language,’ and the way she carried herself right now, the impression he got translated as something like ‘I’m here with you but my mind is so very far away.’

“Hey, what’s the matter?” he asked, jostling her hand. She looked up at him, inquisitive. “There’s something on your mind, isn’t there?”

“What?” she asked, then shook her head. “It’s nothing, just talked to my brother and sister back in New York last night. Been thinking about them a lot, I guess.”

“Oh… okay. But everything’s fine otherwise?” he had to ask. She smiled.

“Everything’s fine,” she promised, and they carried on walking.

When they reached school later, the two of them and Riley, they were quickly joined by what could only be described as a buoyant Nadine Zhu, although her face did show something like stunned silence, too. The whole effect combined into only one possible explanation.

“You got a letter, didn’t you?” Maya stood from the bench, Riley following quick, approaching their bandmate. Nadine looked to the both of them, almost apprehensive, and Maya knew even before she saw the top corner of the envelope she showed them…

“Boston,” Riley blinked. “Woah…”

The possibility that the four members of TXNY might find themselves further split by geography had been something of a concern, but then it had just as quickly been agreed between them that they wouldn’t let the band stand in the way of whatever path their education took them on. And Nadine had only ever wanted to get into medical school… now she had… in Boston.

Maya and Riley only had to share a second-long look before they very nearly pounced their friend, wrapping their arms around her with congratulations and good squeeze hugs.

“Knew the first day I met you, you’re gonna rule the world, Doc,” Maya declared, making Nadine laugh even more than she already was.

“One thing at a time there, I’m still trying to finish high school.”

“Please, it’s barely a formality anymore,” Riley insisted.

They were still hearing about how Nadine’s mailman had come along even as she was walking away from the house and, catching the smallest glimpse in her periphery, she had snapped back around and practically torn the envelope from his hands, when Zay arrived. Going off the way he scooped up his girlfriend they guessed she had already at least texted him the news on her way in. He knew about her acceptance into her top school and he was thrilled for her.

As more of their friends started to arrive, Nadine’s news continued to be met with congratulations, but it wasn’t long that the cheers expanded and were bestowed on a couple others with news to share.

When Joey and Rebecca came strolling toward their friend, both of them had looks on their faces like they had something to share. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out whether this was good news or bad. They were both smiling.

After spending weeks, months even, debating on what path to follow, it had come down that Rebecca had decided to follow her culinary dreams. Joey for his part had maintained his original dream, to go to drama school. And now they had both gotten in where they wanted to go… in New York.

As the hugs continued to be dispensed, it also kind of felt like something official had happened. They’d always known they would find their paths diverging from one another, but now it was real. Nadine was off to Boston, Joey and Rebecca to New York. The rest of them didn’t know where they would end up yet, but they _did_ know it wouldn’t all be in the same place. Their great big group wouldn’t be so big anymore come next fall…

But it wasn’t possible to be disappointed, not as they looked to their friends’ faces, as they basked in the anticipation of their dreams coming true. They wouldn’t have been the friends they were if they weren’t happy for each one of them. They were _very_ happy for them.

With the announcement of those three acceptances, it felt now like they were in for more of this, all day, every day, until all of them had gotten their answers, one way or the other. It was exciting… it was nerve-wracking, too. At least some of them could stop being so anxious. Maya pictured Nadine just a couple days ago, bordering on a freak out, and she looked at her this morning, like she had just… evolved.

The path ahead of her, clouded just a few hours ago, was filling in, and she could see her future ahead of her. Maya was happy for her. But she thought of her own path, still clouded, still feeling sort of… split… and she didn’t know what it would mean.

TO BE CONTINUED


	305. Their Nearing of Openness

The still unopened envelopes had been sitting in the box where she hid anything that she didn’t want to run the risk of her parents snooping into. Not that she believed either of them would actually look through her things… not anymore… When there’d been the rift between them, she had been suspicious, but not anymore. Still, she hadn’t told them about the mail accidentally delivered to their neighbors, not yet. As far as she was concerned, she was still waiting, like most of her friends.

She couldn’t explain why she hadn’t opened them, hadn’t said anything to anyone, because she really didn’t know it herself. All she knew was that, when she’d left her neighbor’s house with the twins she had returned home and never mentioned to her parents about the envelopes. And when she’d gotten down to her room, she had automatically stuck them in the box, and there they had remained. She realized that this whole thing could come crashing down the moment her mother or father talked with their neighbor, but for now… that was just how it would be.

Now here she was, Tuesday morning, getting ready for school, and it was starting to feel like the Telltale Heart in her room… Telltale Envelopes, anyway. But she just sighed and went on her way, once again standing outside waiting until Lucas came along and they started toward Riley’s. She hadn’t even told _them_. Her boyfriend, best friend from Texas, and her best friend from New York. The denial was on full tilt now.

Making it that much more present in her thoughts, they showed up, Lucas and her, at the Matthews house, to be greeted by a face on her childhood friend she recognized at once as her ‘I’m playing it cool right now but I’m barely hanging on and I’m about to burst’ face, and Maya barely managed not to blow the announcement for her.

“Hey, you alright?” Lucas asked, oblivious, and Maya bit back a chuckle. Thankfully, Riley didn’t keep them waiting much longer, brandishing a pair of envelopes. Much as they’d all been keeping quiet about their various processes, Maya knew that Riley had applied to more than two places, which either meant that the others had been rejections or the responses hadn’t come in yet. At the very least, _these_ responses had to be on the positive side.

“Check it out!” she pulled the pages from within one envelope and then the next, showing her name and how they were ‘happy to announce’ and so on, and then her voice devolved into something barely intelligible. The entire way over to school it was just more of that, and both Maya and Lucas could only walk alongside her and take it in, this exuberant joy that could not be contained or ignored.

When they arrived, they just knew that the moment anyone showed up to join them at the bench, their friends would be treated with Riley’s news every time. And that was precisely what happened, once, and again, and again, until Maya just suggested – as a joke – that Riley should simply stand down by the sidewalk and stay there instead of running back and forth each time. Of course, so happy as she was, Riley took it at face value and did just that.

“She’s a full-time job,” Maya sighed over-dramatically, making Lucas laugh as he put his arm around her shoulders.

When Zay was the one to arrive, they didn’t even get to hear it from him, but they knew he’d gotten one or more answers only by watching as Riley told him about her own news. He said something back and then Riley just hugged him with renewed excitement. When he came up toward them, they played as though they hadn’t seen, guessing how he had been looking forward to telling them.

He had applied at more than one school, sure, but all the while he had been banking on one school in particular, and in no way had it anything to do with the school itself. It had _everything_ to do with the location of that school though. As he told them, he had made up his mind on becoming a teacher, and he could learn to be that anywhere, so if he could do it in the same city where his girlfriend would be, well that was where he’d go. And now he would. He was following Nadine to Boston.

She jumped up from the bench and threw her arms around his neck when she found out, liberated from this second weight that had been pressing on her in recent days.

Dylan was the last of them to arrive that day, so that he was accompanied by Riley as he walked up to join the rest of them. As they were approaching, Lucas caught on to the tail end of their conversation, getting confirmation in the process – along with the others – that Dylan had been a man of his word. He’d said he didn’t plan to go to college right away, something that had been a point of contention with his parents, and it was still the case. He hadn’t applied anywhere, and he wasn’t going to, not any time soon.

His parents had come around about halfway in the end. It wasn’t so much that they were kicking him out, but they had met his choice with one of their own. If he believed he could get around without a college education, then he was going to have to prove it them. From the moment he graduated high school he had until the end of the year to get a place of his own, get a full-time job, and show that he could support himself. He had met this challenge head on.

“Does that mean you won’t come to Europe with us?” Riley asked him. “If you have to keep your money…”

“What? No way, of course I’m going with you guys,” he promised her with a confident grin.

TO BE CONTINUED


	306. Their Nearing of Surprises

Wednesday morning saw no new revelations out of any among their group regarding some acceptance or rejection or another, and neither did Thursday. Lucas mentioned as much to Maya when they started off from her house, and she shrugged it off, suggesting it all depended on when the envelopes left from wherever they’d been sent from, or if they had been sent at all yet.

“Yeah, I know,” he shrugged. He couldn’t say that he was in any way nervous, where he was concerned, but something about seeing his friends and classmates get theirs was bound to make him wonder when _he_ would get his, and then… well… He looked at her, thinking about the possibility that the two of them might be off in two completely different directions.

It was hard not to think about what the coming fall would be like for all of them. Leaving home, going to school… Already hearing about Nadine and Zay headed to Boston together, and Joey and Rebecca doing the same in New York… A part of him was already attempting to conjure this near future in a place where he and Maya might possibly live together. But until they got their letters, was it really that prudent to entertain these ideas?

Thursday morning may have been without letters but it hadn’t been without announcements catching them all by surprise. Maybe it was for knowing about her family, her mother’s fortune, but they had imagined Sophie flying off to some prestigious school somewhere. That wasn’t what she was doing though, not at all. She was staying right here in Texas.

“I’m applying to the police academy,” she declared, nodding her head, and sending her ginger ponytail swishing.

The rest of them all stared at her, trying so hard not to look too stunned, trying to imagine her as a cop. Then again, Lucas thought back to the past summer, the day Sophie had assisted in his flight for Philadelphia to go and find Maya. The girl may have looked all sweet and shy, but when the occasion required her crank up into action mode… She might actually do just fine.

“How’d your mom react to this?” Rebecca asked what they had all been thinking. Sophie considered her response for a moment, looking like she was parsing through what could and couldn’t be said aloud before speaking up.

“Words… were said…” she finally said. “Kind of came off similar to what Dylan’s parents told him, except for the deadline,” she shyly revealed. “But I mean I still have money, so I was thinking, any of us staying in the area, maybe we could rent a house together?” Dylan raised his hand at once and Sophie grinned, nodding. Riley raised her hand, too, though with some hesitation.

“Here in Austin or…” she wondered, likely pondering her school options.

“Haven’t decided yet, guess it’ll all depend on everyone else,” Sophie explained, looking to the others, the ones who still hadn’t gotten their replies, or hadn’t made their choices, and who might be staying in Texas. After a moment, Lucas realized that it was only really down to Maya and him. Asher was off to New York to join Ray, and then the rest…

As they were coming out of class and making for lunch later that day, Maya found him and showed him a message she’d received from Smackle, announcing that she was now officially bound for law school back in New York, while Farkle was headed for business school, also in New York. It was just as they’d said they intended to do, and it was hardly a surprise that they would do exactly as they’d said they would.

“So now that makes…” Lucas started to count off in his head, “Six for New York, two for Boston, three for Texas… and two to be determined,” he craned his finger to point to himself and then to her. She nodded, confirming his count.

“Yeah…” Maya let out a breath, leaning forward until her head was pressed to his shoulder for a moment before standing back to face him again. “So, you haven’t gotten anything yet?” she asked, looking up at him, and he could sense in her voice how much the not knowing where they would both end up was making _her_ fret, too.

“No, not yet,” he replied, slipping his hand in hers as they started on again toward the cafeteria. “You?” he asked.

Before she could say a thing – whether or not she _would_ have said anything – Nadine and Riley came along, looking for her. They had gotten the same message as she had, Smackle’s announcement about hers and Farkle’s college news.

With Smackle staying in New York and Nadine bound for Boston, Riley’s choices – Texas or New York – were apparently now tipping toward New York all over again, the better to reunite the band about as close as they would have been to each other up to this point. It left Maya as the last hold out, to some extent. Texas or New York, those had been her options, too, of course.

“What do you think?” Nadine asked, smiling.

Lucas looked down to his girlfriend at his side. Maya looked like she’d forgotten how to speak. He knew plainly that being brought up against a choice like this, she would have been immediately overwhelmed. He gave her hand a squeeze and a jostle and she looked up at him, meeting his encouraging smile.

“I don’t know, I mean… I need to know where they’ll have said yes first, right?” she spoke slowly.

“Right, no, of course,” Nadine nodded on. “Look, just let us know as soon as you know, okay?”

“Sure,” Maya told them, and they scurried off, leaving her and Lucas standing there in the hall.

“You alright?” Lucas asked, and she let out a breath.

“Never better,” she lied.

TO BE CONTINUED


	307. Their Nearing of Uncertainty

On Friday afternoon, Maya returned home only to depart again not long after with Nellie and Gracie in their stroller, bound for the bus stop. Riding along with her sisters, just the three of them, was a funny sort of experience, even if it did occasionally get her curious glances from some passengers like they might have been hers for some reason. Maya all too happily gave those people a solid stink eye.

Getting off the bus, she carried on her way and up to the Friar house. It hadn’t been planned for her to head down there like that, except that Lucas had been telling her how Pappy Joe had been having a bad couple of days and her immediate solution had been this one: when in doubt, bring a couple of giggling toddlers. Pappy Joe had always been great with the pair of them, now they could repay the favor.

Even as she rang the doorbell, she could hear voices from inside, and she guessed what _that_ was about. Tom Friar came to open the door with that smile on his face. It took her breath, not because it looked so like his son’s smile – which it did – but because she understood what it was about. Lucas had gotten some letters, and the family was celebrating. Maybe her visit with the twins wouldn’t have been needed anymore. There was no going back though, was there?

“Hey, Maya, hey there,” Mr. Friar greeted her before crouching to get a look at the twins in their stroller. “We weren’t expecting you all, were we?” he asked, looking back up to Maya.

“No, no, well I… I wanted to surprise Pappy Joe, heard he wasn’t…” she went about explaining, and Mr. Friar nodded, understanding.

“Well, come on in, please,” he stepped back and she rolled through. “You’re just in time,” he added.

The stroller was parked in the hall, the girls scooped out and set on their feet, that they might follow along, hand in hand with their big sister. They were led into the kitchen, to join the rest of the Friar family, sitting around the table where Maya could already see unfolded sheets of paper, open envelopes…

“We have visitors,” Mr. Friar told his wife, son, and father. They all looked up, reacting to the sisters’ arrival like family showing up at Christmas. Mrs. Friar got up from the table, pressing a hug around Maya before crouching, much as her husband had done, to the twins’ level, before picking one of them up and turning her eyes up to look at Maya. She could never tell which was which.

“That’s Gracie,” Maya informed her before picking up Nellie.

“Yes, of course,” Melinda Friar beamed, turning back to the little brunette in her arms, melting into cooing sort of talk, making Maya chuckle as she went toward Pappy Joe, handing Nellie over to him when he extended his arm for her. There was a reason why he was so popular as mall Santas went, and the moment he received the little one in his lap, it was as though a switch had been flipped. It was just as Maya had hoped would happen.

With her sisters being the big hit they tended to be, Maya caught Lucas’ eye even as he was getting up, too, scooping up the letters and moving to meet her, escorting her out of the kitchen and up to his room where they could sit and talk.

“So,” she turned to him as he was shutting the door. “You got all your letters? They all said yes?” He looked to the papers in his hands, shuffling from one to the other before handing them over for her to look at. There were four of them, two in Texas, two in New York. She could only smile, looking back up at him. “That’s amazing, Lucas,” she told him, her arms moving around him and embracing him.

As she held him and he held her, it felt like she’d hit pause, pulled down the mask while he couldn’t see her face. Looking at the places he had applied to, she could see it plainly, how he had gone and covered his bases, ensuring that wherever _she_ went, he would be able to go right along with her. And here she was, with envelopes hidden in her room, for nearly a week, and she still hadn’t dared touch a single one.

When he asked her if she would open them now, it took her a few moments to process it, to realize that she hadn’t even confessed the fact that she’d been hiding her responses. He’d just guessed. She looked up at him, that look on his face that tugged at her heart so, telling her without words that, although she’d kept this secret from him, he had seen through it… and he understood.

“I will,” she promised with a sigh, moving to sit on the edge of his bed.

“Want me to come along?” he asked, sitting next to her.

“To my house or…” she turned back to him and he smiled.

“Either, both,” he shrugged. She reached out and took his hand in hers. “I thought it through, you know? As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter so much where I go to school so long as I go… and so long as we’re in the same place.”

She smiled back at him, knowing every word he said was true. Wherever she’d go, he’d be there, too. It had been the plan, long ago, back when it wasn’t all so… real. That was one hurdle removed, and it had been a big one, no doubt to it. But it wasn’t the only one and the other one was just as big.

“I need to make up my mind,” she conceded, “But I think I need to try and get there on my own first. If I can’t figure it out though… I’m tagging you in,” she promised. Lucas nodded in agreement. “Hey… congrats, college guy,” she added, in case she hadn’t congratulated him enough. He grinned, tipping his head in thanks.

TO BE CONTINUED


	308. Their Nearing of Decisions

Maya and her sisters were hosted by the Friars for dinner, as Melinda Friar called Katy and Shawn to suggest they take the opportunity for a dinner date just the two of them. So, the three sisters were able to partake in the celebration for Lucas’ acceptances, even if he hadn’t decided which he would actually go for. As a whole, even _if_ the whole thing hadn’t gone just precisely as she had expected, the aim had certainly been reached. Pappy Joe had taken a jolly turn, with all of them there with him.

When time came for the girls to head home, Mr. Friar offered to drive them home, rather than to have them go and take the bus.

“I can take them,” Lucas counteroffered, looking from his father to his girlfriend, almost like some remnant of his doubts needed her to agree to his driving not only her but her little sisters as well. With the stroller doubling as spare car seats they had been able to set the twins in the car, their big sister sat between them, and take off on their way for the Hunter-Hart house.

“Looks like they’re still out,” Maya reported as she and Lucas carried Nellie and Gracie into the house, already having seen the car was not parked outside.

“Do you want to set them in the nursery?” Lucas asked, with Gracie balanced in his arms, asleep and huddled with ease. Nellie, for her part, was still wide awake in Maya’s arms.

“Not yet,” Maya decided, nodding for him to follow toward the basement stairs. Opening the door, they were greeted by the sound of the dogs, roused from sleep and eager for their best girl’s approach. They were all crowded up at the bottom of the stairs as they came down. “Hey, guys,” Maya beamed as she whispered.

She gave each a pat and a scratch as she passed by and set Nellie carefully on her bed. She nodded for Lucas to go and keep an eye on her even as she went to dig out the box from her hiding space. He already knew about it, though she wouldn’t have made him shut his eyes even if he didn’t.

She turned to look at him as she stood there, box in hand. She was feeling the nerves now, bunching up together somewhere in her throat. Even with him there, Lucas Friar and that face of his that just stared back at her, flowing with confidence, there were those butterflies in her stomach. They weren’t even fluttery, beautiful and graceful butterflies, no. These ones breathed fire and wielded knives, and they burned and they slashed their way through her innards. It wasn’t pleasant, to say the least.

“Go on,” he nodded and she breathed out, sending the death butterflies thrashing as she opened the box and pulled out the stack still tied in its rubber band. “Is that all of them?”

“I think so,” she told him, hiding the box again. “I didn’t look, and nothing else came this week.” She sat on the ground, near the bed. The dogs had gone back to lie down and sleep, under the stairs, Gracie still slept, and Nellie sat on the bed next to Lucas, looking about the room, as always, as though she needed little else but her senses to entertain herself. There were so many of them in the room, but only him and her focused on the stack of envelopes as she released the elastic and laid them out one by one. “All of them,” she confirmed.

Like him, she had done her best to leave her options open, for schools and locations both. New York, Texas, those two poles in her life… but, as Lucas would see, not the only places she had sent out applications to. As she would tell him, she couldn’t say for sure that she ever really intended to go to some of these places but maybe… maybe she just wanted to see if she could.

And as she started opening all those envelopes which had miraculously landed in her (neighbor’s) mailbox at once, she discovered that yes, she could. Every last one of them was an acceptance, and the more of them she opened, the more it felt as though the death butterflies were being neutralized, one by one. At every one she read out to him, Lucas make a quiet – so not to wake Gracie – but hearty cheer, and she would smile, moving onward.

When she was done, she just sat there for a minute, her hands over her face as she took it in. The way was open ahead of her. Once upon a time she would never have imagined that she would get good enough grades for this to even be a possibility, or the money, or… well, that she would even want to go. But every one of those barriers had been broken down now. The way was open… but they were diverting roads, and now she needed to pick one. The death butterflies were not so easily vanquished.

“Hey…” she felt Lucas’ hand at her shoulder and she looked up. Caught in her thoughts, she hadn’t even been aware of how he’d neatly stacked the various letters, setting them aside that he might climb down to the ground, bringing the twins along with him before leaning toward her to get her attention. Now that she was looking at him, he leaned the rest of the way to lay a kiss, first to her forehead and then to her lips, a bright smile on his face. “Congratulations,” he told her, and she couldn’t stop smiling. There they’d been earlier, celebrating him, when they could have celebrated her, too.

“What do I do now?” she whispered, uncertainty blooming on her face. She caught up Nellie, who’d set to crawl away, and the girl squealed and giggled before settling in her big sister’s lap.

“Whatever you want to do,” he replied. He looked to the stack of letters. “Are there any you can eliminate?” he suggested.

She let out a breath, pondering this, before reaching her free hand over to carefully fan out the letters, so she could look at the symbols at the top of each of them. There were six of them. After half a minute, she reached in and picked out one and set it aside, face down, before picking out a second and doing the same. It felt as much a relief to see the pile shrink as it complicated matters to find that those remaining were not so easy to dismiss.

“I didn’t think that if I applied to six schools I’d have to pick from six, I figured some of them would say no, it would have been easier,” she sighed, turning her attention back to her sister, giving her a few tickles to hear her musical little laugh and let its sound calm her. Nellie did not disappoint, and Maya smiled, leaning in to kiss that squishy face.

She stayed a while like this, focused on her sister. There was a particularly deadly butterfly whose specific target was the thought of being away from this precious girl and her twin over in Lucas’ arms as they grew. Right now, this was the moment, the one where she’d decide, where she would know if that would be the case or not, and when held up to that moment, feeling how that damned butterfly kept lashing at her with all the fervor and destruction in its imaginary body, she knew.

She imagined her future, and she imagined Nellie’s future, and Gracie’s, and she knew the regret that would thrive in her heart would not be that she hadn’t gone to New York, or Europe, or anywhere else. It would rather be that she would be so far away, that she would derail the bond she had with her sisters, with her mother and father, from what it had grown to be, after being unexpected for so, _so_ long.

Maya turned her eyes up to Lucas for a moment, determination locked in her face, and when she looked to the letters still facing up at her side, she fished out a single one and handed it to him. He took it, and he bowed his head in agreement. They were staying in Texas, both of them, although they _would_ be leaving Austin. But then they would only be a couple of hours away in Houston, just a drive away from home, from their families. That they could do.

“Maybe we can get Sophie to come along, do that shared house thing she said. And we can get Dylan, too, and Riley,” Maya told Lucas, finally, _finally_ released of those dastardly butterflies.

“Wait, did she decide where she was going? I thought she still needed to…”

“Everything she’s told me, I’m pretty sure the moment I tell her I chose Texas, she’ll be on board.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	309. Her Growth in Time

The weeks that led them into the month of April felt like they’d hit hyper speed. Graduation was nearing, and their Europe trip, and of course everything leading up to college… After so much time spent in wait of knowing what they would be doing, knowing where they would go exactly on their trip, where they would go to school, actually knowing those answers didn’t actually simplify things a whole lot.

It had been collectively decided that they should put Asher in charge of keeping track of their plans for Europe, though he had just as soon taken on Sophie as his co-captain, the both of them being most likely to find solutions where needed. Asher had a notebook filled with various notes, from itineraries to important phone numbers and websites, to backup transport and lodging options… He carried that thing around like it was sacred.

As a whole, in planning the trip and everything it would involve, figuring out how much luggage they could get away with bringing was one of the biggest issues, though there was another part they had not thought of right away. All of them headed out there would be gone for a couple of weeks, overseas, and unaccompanied. Sure, they were all off to college, some of them far out of state, so they’d be _living_ away from any parent or chaperone of any kind, but the trip came first, and the notion of their unsupervised initiative made it that much more notable.

Then there was the part _after_ the trip: the fast approaching departures from home and off to college, to Boston, to New York, to Houston…

As predicted, the moment Maya had told Riley where she’d decided to go, her best friend was on board to follow her there. And as the days had gone by, with the news passing on through their ranks, it had come to fall into place that both Sophie and Dylan were indeed going to be making the move to Houston. They would follow Sophie’s idea about getting a house together, the five of them.

They were just now coming around to starting their search for their future home, and thinking about it all, it felt so unreal to imagine it, for Maya and Lucas both. They’d be living together, they… they’d be sharing a room, a bed. No more sneaking around, no more his place or hers, they were starting something, and it was calling on anxiety as much as anticipation. What if it didn’t work, what if it made things weird, not having their own space?

The more they were looking into it though, the more they let the idea properly seep in, they knew they’d find a way to make it work. They’d gone through enough together in the near on six years they’d known each other, in the three plus years they’d been a couple, to let themselves think they would falter. Instead, they would spend most of their morning walks discussing what their room would be like. They hadn’t quite made it past the stage of smirking whenever either of them mentioned ‘their’ room.

“So, I may have found a job out there,” she told him one morning as they took off from her house.

“What? How?” Lucas stared at her in awe. She laughed, seeing the look on his face.

“Well, I told Asher’s uncle about how we were moving to Houston for school. With me _and_ Asher _and_ Nadine all going away, he’s about to lose a lot of his staff. Anyway, he said his sister has a restaurant out in Houston, and he’d put in a word for me. She called me last night and we talked. She said to go and see her when we’d head over and we could meet, but she’s pretty much on board with taking me on.”

“Wow,” Lucas smiled. “Yeah, I’ve met her, she’s really nice.”

“Sounded that way,” Maya nodded. “What are _you_ going to do? Want me to see if she’d hire you, too?”

“I don’t know, maybe. I might look around a bit, see what I might do. Maybe I can keep giving museum tours.”

“Oh, the museums, I’ve been looking into those,” she brightened up at once, and the rest of their walk was spent discussing the various museums of Houston.

With Maya’s decision to go to Houston and Riley’s to follow her, it had officially forced the four members of TXNY to sit and talk and consider the future of the band. They’d be split three ways now, and splitting a quartet in three just didn’t have the makings of a solid band. They could keep on recording songs, sure, but they could hardly do more, not so long as they’d be in school, and even after… Would there ever be a time where all four of them lived in the same city?

So, what were they going to do? Could they really just hit stop and break the band? Was that what they wanted? It really wasn’t. But what were they supposed to do? They couldn’t do shows, just Maya and Riley without both Smackle _and_ Nadine. They had no aspiration to replace anyone either.

“Okay, but let’s just be clear on one thing, we’re not breaking up the band, are we?” Maya finally said. The other girls all gave a shake of the head. “Alright, so we’re not there yet. We’re still finishing our senior year. And this summer, we’ll be together, all four of us. Let’s just… put a pin in it and keep thinking about what we can do, alright?”

The others agreed at once, and that was that. No decisions had been made, except for the very important one that they were moving forward. The weeks to come, barrelling toward graduation, would be hectic enough without having to add to their load.

TO BE CONTINUED


	310. Her Growth in Support

Much as her changes in circumstance – not to mention in availability – had made it a reasonable choice for her to step aside from participating in the Basket Cases’ competitions and other events, Maya did find she missed it. Everything she had come to be, living here in Texas, all of it felt represented in the quiz bowl team she had formed along with Nadine, Rebecca, and Scott. On the one hand, of course, there was the competitive edge she’d always had. On the other, there was the once unexpected joy in school and deepening of knowledge.

This year, the Basket Cases’ lineup included Scott Shelby, Rebecca Fitz, Sophie Zvolensky, and, from the boys’ basketball team, freshman Adil Naaji. They’d been doing pretty good, and whenever she was able to, Maya would attend their competitions.

Today was one such occasion, and it was a big one. Luckily, it took place – of all places – in Houston. So, while all of their friends were on hand for the competition itself, it had been organized that, when time would allow, the five of them set to move here over the summer would go off and get a look about for potential home rentals. They weren’t expecting to make anything official of it, but they could still get a look around, couldn’t they?

It felt so different being up here now. She’d been to Houston several times over the years she’d lived in Texas, sure, but now… now it was about to become her home for the foreseeable future. Since she’d made up her mind about going there, every so often she’d found herself absently researching one thing or another, from stores for this thing or that thing, to the area around her school… performance venues… That part would likely be for naught, but she couldn’t help herself.

They managed to go exploring for houses before the competition and make it back in time without being late, although when they showed up to rejoin the rest of their friends it might have looked to most people as though they _had_ been late or had some other sort of misfortune. When the others asked what was wrong, they explained.

Though the search was mostly for curiosity’s sake, they had done their homework. They needed to find somewhere in the area they had designated as most beneficial for all of them, so none of them were forced to commute a ridiculous amount of time more than the others. If they couldn’t find something in that area, they had alternatives.

They weren’t supposed to get attached to any one house already. It was too early, and getting their hearts set on any one place now would only lead to heartbreak later.

Except they’d found a house. Not just a house, a perfect house. Five bedrooms, so they’d have one to spare, a great backyard, recent renovations… It was so well placed for all of them, not just for school or work but general living, and the price was, to each of them, absolutely manageable. They’d gotten to visit and everything, and by the time they’d left, starting on their way to the Basket Cases’ competition, they had been hit with the sudden realization that they’d let themselves do exactly what they weren’t supposed to do.

“Now some other people are going to get our perfect house and live in it,” Riley frowned at the end of the story. Maya and Nadine could only smirk – if sadly so – as they closed in at either side of their bandmate and friend.

They couldn’t keep thinking about it, not now. Now, they needed to go and support their friends and _not_ sound bummed out of their heads.

Zay was the one to get them out of their funk, with a rousing speech which came to attract several others around them to stop and look at him and listen, amused and curious. When he stopped, his intended audience looked at him with great smiles.

“You’re going to make a great teacher,” Nadine declared, leaning to press a kiss to her boyfriend’s cheek. He grinned, standing tall.

“Alright, Mr. Babineaux, let’s go,” Maya nodded to the door, and they went in.

“You’re going to backseat participate again, aren’t you?” Lucas asked her as they took their seats. She turned to stare at him, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m going to do what now?” she asked back.

“You’re really going to tell me you don’t realize you mouth the answers to most of the questions whenever we’re out here?” he gave her a pointed look, to which she replied with an unsteady look of innocence.

“Who, me?” she asked, sitting back.

“Yes, you,” he replied, imitating her.

“Well, what can I say, once a Basket Case and so on,” she gestured.

On stage or not, Maya had a great time, encouraging her friends but also – as Lucas had called her on it – answering the questions where she thought she knew the answers. It wasn’t as though this behavior was reserved to a setting like this. Shawn would not sit near her if some game show or another was on television, not with her calling out answers all the time. Funnily enough, her mother was the opposite.

The Basket Cases came out of the day victorious, and they celebrated by visiting Asher’s aunt’s restaurant. There, somewhere in the middle of a great meal offered to them on the house, Maya passed her job interview without knowing it. Before they left, Asher’s aunt Isabel told Maya to give her a call after she’d made the move to Houston so they could look into getting her into some quick training before she could start to work with her.

“We work together here,” Isabel told her. “I may be your boss, but you don’t work for me, you work for them,” she indicated the various customers around the dining room. “Do you see?” she asked, smiling.

“I do,” Maya smiled back. “And I can’t wait to work with you.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	311. Her Growth in Kindness

The end of the school year drew nearer day to day, and so did graduation. The great day would carry this year’s senior class out of these halls and on to bigger and brighter things. Before that could happen, there were still plenty of things for them all to do, so they couldn’t call the year and their legacy done and handled yet. One of those things was the puppy jar, the pup fund, which had been fed all through the school year, fed on their nostalgia for this point in their lives that was about to come to an end.

But before the end of the year, before handing over the collected funds to the dog shelter, as they had agreed, it had been decided among them that they would host an event, a fundraiser, to really push things into high gear. It would never have been half as grand as it turned out to be if they didn’t have their secret weapon in the form of one Melinda Friar, planner extraordinaire (or so she named herself).

“Woah…” was all Maya could think to say as she and Lucas walked into the park to find the setup rapidly coming together. “Alright so maybe I’m starting to think she’s earned her nickname…”

A vast white tent had been erected, to host a small stage and loads of tables, where guests would be served lunch, and the student committee for the pup drive – Maya and her friends – would host the event. Of course, there would be a performance from TXNY, along with a few other local acts they’d been able to bring aboard through their connections with the radio station. And then, outside the tent, throughout the day, they would also have dogs from the shelter, looking to be adopted. They would have activities for kids, and there would be a raffle for prizes donated from various businesses in the area.

“She had Pappy Joe write out the name cards for the tables,” Lucas told her. “He has surprisingly fine penmanship.” Maya looked to the nearest table and spotted one of the cards.

“He’s like some calligraphy savant…” she spoke in a hush. “I need him to teach me everything.”

“We all have our hidden talents,” Lucas smirked. “Come on,” he snatched up her hand, leading her on to a trailer, sitting outside the main event area, to show her the raffle prizes.

As much as getting to look at all those prizes was fun, it held no candle to the moment when the dogs arrived at the park. Maya and Lucas had been betting between themselves to see which of them might cave and take one of those pups home. When they were faced with the dogs in question though, it became clear that neither of them was exactly exempt from that temptation.

“Quick, create a distraction, my buddy Georgie and I will make a break for it, won’t we, Georgie?” Maya spoke in crooning coos, scratching heartily at the big softie she’d been drawn to. “Yes, we will, we so will…” she went on, grinning at that lolling tongue and those happy eyes. “Hey, Huckleberry, you hear me?” she turned her head around, only to find her boyfriend had not heard a word out of her, his entire attention focused on a small dog he had cradled in his arms. “Look alive, Friar!” she snapped her fingers at him. He finally looked up. “Who do we have here?”

“This is Rocky,” he declared, moving to crouch near Maya and Georgie. The two dogs were very calm around one another, in a sort of way that suggested familiarity.

“Seriously, I am one cute thing away from taking this one home, what do you say?” she asked him, with conspiracy in her voice, nodding down to Rocky.

“We’re moving to Houston in a few months, if we’re going to bring any dogs with us, wouldn’t it be smarter to bring the dogs we already have?” he pointed out, and seeing the flicker in her eyes he would have to understand she was only now getting to realize the dilemma that would be figuring out what happened with her Queen, and her Ghost, and her Tuck, as he would with his Dash.

“Alright, Georgie, pal, I am going to find you a really good home today, if it’s the last thing I do, deal?” she spoke quietly as she wrapped her arms around the clueless dog.

Whether or not he understood her promise or not, she held it. When she and the others took to the stage, microphones in hand, and when she joined Riley and Nadine for their performance, and at every chance she got, she found a way to remind their guests about the dogs available for adoption and slipped in a specific mention of Georgie and Rocky. And by the end of the day, both dogs found a home and a family to join.

“So, how did we do?” Maya asked Mrs. Friar, as they were all lending what help they could in cleaning up their corner of the park.

“Oh, I think you will be very pleased,” Lucas’ mother’s voice was a trill of charm and mischief. “You might consider splitting your donations to two, maybe three shelters, that’s how well you kids did,” she informed them with a sparkling grin.

Maya looked back to Lucas, to their friends, and she didn’t know that they would ever forget this time in their lives. It had all come out of something of a joke between all of them, but to see what it had turned into… it was actually so wonderful that the feeling could barely be contained within them.

“You know what I want to do right now?” Maya asked Lucas when they finally left the park.

“Go home and see your dogs?” he guessed.

“So much…” she sighed, a part of her heart still pining after that fluffy mutt Georgie.

“I’ll go and get Dash, we can take all of them for a walk,” Lucas suggested, and she gasped. Now that sounded like the best way to cap off the day.

TO BE CONTINUED


	312. Her Growth in Guidance

The girls’ basketball team was on fire all year, and it only seemed as though they got better and better as they went. Many among them would joke that their captain was determined for them to have the best season ever, as it would be her last, but then it was sort of true enough that it wasn’t a joke anymore. Maya wanted them to reignite their legacy in this school, creating the momentum that would send them soaring after she was gone. And, so far, she was succeeding beyond all expectations.

Game day was upon them once again, and as ever Maya would awaken with that tingling feeling in her, like she was ready to conquer the world… or at least the opposing team.

By the time she stood in the locker room with all her teammates and their coach, Maya was about as ready as anyone was ever going to be. And to look around the room, to see all her teammates’ faces as they would steal smiling glances toward her, she knew the feeling was mutual. But it was more than that, really. These girls… they were all looking to her, as their teammate, their friend and classmate, but maybe most importantly as their captain.

She still remembered how it had caught her by surprise to be appointed to the post. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought that she could do it, but seeing as she’d never believed she would actually be called up for it, she hadn’t considered whether she’d be able to do it or not until there it was.

It would work on her favor, at the very least, that she was very good at appearing in control even when, on the inside, she could feel a surge of uncertainty. In the beginning she had _definitely_ been using that gift, because she really didn’t know what she was doing or if she was doing it all that well. But then she had her team, and all she had to do was to look to her teammates and see how they looked at her, and relied on her, and from there her confidence as a captain had started to rise, until she wasn’t wearing that mask of control anymore and it was just that she _was_ in control.

After two whole years without the teams, she’d almost forgotten what it felt like, when they _were_ at the heart of a season, almost forgotten what had made her fall in love with the sport enough that she stuck with it, that she’d worked as hard as she’d done on her studies so that Nadine would stay on the team with her.

It would have been easier to remember all that if it didn’t come hand in hand with the knowledge that, when this season of basketball and this school year would both be over… it would be it for her. She wasn’t carrying on, not in college. Every game they played now was one less she had left. Was it any wonder she would be so dedicated to making it a great one, every time?

She would have thought maybe that the whole thing might mess with her head, make her sad, when she stepped out on to the court, but no… It was the striking of a match, lighting her flame and letting her burn bright from the start of that game to its end. Today was no different. She stepped out there, taking in her surroundings, from her teammates to the other team, and all those families and friends out in the stands.

She’d barely come into view that somewhere she could hear the call. _Lucas…_ She grinned. She was ready to make this a good one, a great one.

Maya didn’t necessarily define a great game as being one where the opposition barely put in a fight for that win, though of course those were good, too. No, a great game was one where they would come on the other side of it as winners because they’d shown their skill and used it to in such a way that they’d been the victors when that clock ran its course.

Their opponents were no slouches either, and it had been a tight game in some places, but then as they came into the final minutes Maya and her team surged ahead, until they’d secured their win, and then the gym erupted in cheers, while the girls crowded in together, shouting and hugging with glee.

One more done… one less to play. This was the one moment where she allowed herself to feel it a little bit, right as the game came to an end. At that moment, if they won – and they hadn’t lost one all year – then everyone was overjoyed, and the energy around her would help to hush away any sort of sadness rising in her at the acknowledgment of her dwindling number of games left to play.

Further helping to soothe the ache would be to end up finally reunited with her parents and hearing them proudly recalling this play or that one, on and on. And then having her friends there, and Lucas… Lucas who would know more than anyone else about this feeling in the pit of her stomach and would understand where it came from. He would come over to her, and he would scoop her up in his arms, making her laugh as he showered her with praise.

“You keep this up, they won’t want to let you go,” he joked, and her laughter redoubled.

“Well, too bad for them, we are Houston bound you and me, Friar. New world, new steps, college and a house where we’ll both live,” she counted off as they started off toward the parking lot. She gave him a look, spying at the happiness sitting plainly on his face at the thought of all this. Maybe that feeling they had for playing basketball would find a new way of inhabiting them, out there in Houston.

TO BE CONTINUED


	313. Her Growth in Friendship

Much as they’d all been able to cut some of the glare off their feelings of ‘pre-emptive nostalgia’ by providing toward the pup fund, the further they came into this senior year, the more it got to feel like they couldn’t push those feelings much further before they’d have to face up to them. Every new instance that came along to make them realize how much they were going to miss some other thing became just a little more difficult to ignore. Maya could just see them all… imploding into the biggest downer.

They were at Dylan’s house, Tuesday afternoon after school, doing what they’d been doing together for years, even before _she’d_ been around, before Nadine, all the way back to when it was little Dylan and Asher and Lucas and Zay. They were playing basketball. Homework would be a thing, in time, but for now it was just all of them, sitting or playing.

Maya had so many memories of afternoons spent here, tossing this ball around. The teams may have varied, in size and in lineups, but the spirit that inhabited them all here was always the same, and it would always be… always…

And right there, that was where it hit her, this feeling, this realization. It wouldn’t be much longer before they were all scattered to the winds, wouldn’t all be here together anymore. Sure, it wasn’t as though they were never going to be back in Austin or back here at this house, but… How long would it be before all of them were back together, here or anywhere?

Having friends here and back in New York, she was all too familiar with the issues involved with bringing everyone in one place. Sometimes it just wasn’t possible to make the journey, because of some other engagement, or because of how expensive it could be to make the trip… Nadine and Zay, once they were up in Boston, might have more of a shot at traveling to visit those bound for New York – or vice versa – but between all of them up there and those of them staying in Texas…

“Hey, where are you?” She was snapped out of her thoughts by Lucas’ voice right in front of her. She blinked, realizing she’d sort of lost track of the game.

“Here, sorry,” she jogged back into play.

It was nothing new to her that the thought of being taken from the people she loved would hit her like a speeding train. Still, even with the move from New York almost six years earlier, this might have been the biggest shift yet. They were all heading into new places, yes, but even after they were through with college and whatever other education required for their chosen fields, in all likelihood several of them would settle down somewhere other than Austin when all was said and done.

They’d never be like this, here and now in front of Dylan’s house, not after they all went away. How could she _not_ be feeling a bit thrown off course?

They had meant the world to her, each and every one of them, in their own way, bringing something new and lifechanging to her throughout the years. They had taken her into their circle of friends, made her feel less alone when she’d had nothing and no one to hang on to in this place other than her mother. They had given her basketball. They had motivated her to better herself in school. They had enabled her to find work, here and soon in Houston, too. They had led to the creation of TXNY. They had… they had become more than friends, they had become family to her, back when she’d had so little of it. One… one had taken her heart and given his in return…

They wouldn’t be gone from her life, she knew that. And going to Houston would be a monumental change but it would be a good one, too, she could feel it. She’d have Lucas, and Riley, and Dylan, and Sophie… She’d be going to school, studying more than what was expected of her as a high school student but actually what she’d need to study in order to make the future she saw for herself come to life. She’d work at Asher’s aunt’s restaurant. As to the band, well that hadn’t been decided yet, but she wasn’t giving up either. And she’d be just a couple hours away from her sisters and her parents.

That was what she had to do. She had to think about the good things she’d find out there, not the things that would go away here.

The game came to an end with a tie, and, after some arguing over whether or not that last basket had been good or not, they decided to settle the matter with a shoot off. Sophie was elected on one side, Asher on the other.

“Hey…” Lucas came up to stand behind her, locking his arms around her waist until she was leaning against him with a smile. “You good?”

“Never better,” she promised. “Really,” she added, knowing he cared enough that a little extra reassurance wouldn’t hurt.

With encouragement from all sides, the shoot off fell in favor of Asher’s team. The victors cheered, while the defeated would give their halfway sincere disappointment. At the end of the day, always, the wins or losses never mattered so much as their getting to play together.

“We need a basket at the house in Houston,” Maya declared as they started into the Orlando house, still in the crook of Lucas’ arm.

“Yeah, we do,” he agreed. “There’ll be two of you from the girls’ team, two of us from the guys’… and Riley to call the shots.”

“Oh, she’ll love _that_ ,” Maya chuckled.

TO BE CONTINUED


	314. Her Growth in Cheer

Her self-made sign in hand, Maya was ready to take her place in the stands and cheer on the boys’ team. She and the rest of _her_ team would take up a row almost to themselves, the better to make a noted showing of support to the boys on the court. They did the same when it was their turn to play. This time around though, with the season was drawing nearer and nearer to its end, and with the graduation of half the boys playing this year, the girls had conspired to make this game that much more special.

It had taken them some time to decide what they’d actually do to bring their plan to fruition. They wanted to dress special, that was all well and good, but what kind of special? Were they trying to be funny or respectful? Both? Neither? It was April, Halloween was half a year ago or away, depending on how you looked at it. That wouldn’t do. Nothing crude either; that wasn’t what they were about.

“We need some sparkles…” Violet Blackmore declared. “Then we’ll stand out,” she gestured, making the others laugh.

“Formal or casual?” Keilani Avelino threw in.

“Oh, formal gets my vote,” Margot Covington raised her hand.

“Like a dress? Or a suit?” Billie Thompson pondered. That one left them stumped for a while. They could sort of see both options as interesting. As they would argue, the dresses would show them under a different light than when they’d be out on the court in their jerseys and shorts. But then the suits… wouldn’t that just be fantastic to see, too?

After much… _much_ debate and consideration, the suits had won out.

For once, they had called on ‘the bank of Zvolensky’ to assist in their purchase of the suits. They had considered rentals, but Sophie had insisted that they might come in handy again sometime later.

“Consider it my graduation present to all of you… even if we’re not all graduating,” she’d smiled, and the others had not needed to be told twice.

It had required some amount of sneaking around to go about shopping for the suits – with fittings and everything – and then getting hold of them, all without letting the guys in on the surprise. And now, this morning, they had gathered for phase two, which involved putting on their suits and then doing a bit of hair and makeup ‘bonus’ as they’d say. When the transformation was done, there was no denying they were a sight to behold.

“Oh, we’re breaking the pup bank on this one,” Maya let out a breath before calling in Shawn to bring his camera and get a few shots of the twelve of them together.

Even making their way to the game required some amount of subterfuge, to prevent any of the guys from seeing or even finding out about what they were up to. Only once they knew that they would all have to be in the locker room until the start of the game did the girls made their way into the gym, heels clicking in time as they made for the stands and their usual row. The others in attendance quickly took notice; it would have been impossible _not_ to look at them, really.

“Here they come…” Sophie tapped Maya’s arm with a grin, just as the doors opened and the boys’ team came in.

It wasn’t long that the guys started to notice them up there in their new suits, and Maya swore that a few of them nearly tripped over their own feet as they went. Certainly, she caught Lucas’ gaze easily enough, and once she had it, she didn’t know that she could lose it. She could just make out a silent ‘wow’ passing his lips, and she threw him a tip of the head and a wink, grinning brightly.

For the distinguished set they presented, standing up there in their suits, once the game started, they did not give their place when it came to cheering on the boys. They had their signs and they had their voices. Maya gave the call, as she would, and when it reached Lucas down there on the court, he turned to look in her direction and gave her a short salute in acknowledgment, making her smile.

Whether it came as a boost received by the girls’ showing or simply a show of talent, the boys came out on top, to the rousing cheer of their supporters in the gym that day.

As the stands started to clear out, some of their girls headed on home, while others, like Maya, waited for a friend or boyfriend to emerge from the locker room, showered and changed. When Lucas finally showed up, Maya gave an innocent look, even as she moved this way and that, displaying the entire ensemble he would have seen only at a distance up to now.

“You’re going to make me look under dressed,” he told her as he came to stand before her.

“No idea how that could happen, you always look like a million,” she shrugged. “But, hey, if you want to look like a billion, I’m not stopping you,” she added, leaning forward to kiss him.

“If I had a suit on, too, we’d look like feds or something,” he pointed out, making her giggle.

“Fine, then you wear the dress, I look good like this,” she raised her chin, touching her collar.

“Can’t argue on that,” Lucas let out a breath, looking her over once again, and she really couldn’t stop smiling if she tried. As they headed out of the school, she had a good feeling that, at the next game for her team, the boys may well have their own surprise lined up, and she couldn’t wait to see what they had up their sleeves.

TO BE CONTINUED


	315. Her Growth in Teamwork

Lucas followed her home to hang out a while after the game that day. The whole ride to the house, the two of them in the backseat of her dad’s car with him and her mother in the front, she could just see her boyfriend stealing glances at her, at the whole look she’d put together for that day’s game, and she could just imagine the turmoil in his head, feeling certain… urges… growing in him, but at the same time knowing he needed to keep those down, what with her parents in the front seat.

Maya couldn’t pretend as though this didn’t amuse her, or that she didn’t wholly sympathize with him, but she still didn’t let herself fall into the trap of messing with him, with a look, or a touch, or a gesture. The way things had evolved between the two of them had always felt just right. Once they had taken the leap together and gone from friends to boyfriend and girlfriend, everything had been as it should be. They weren’t ‘messing around,’ no.

They loved one another, and they knew it was in no way some adolescent exaggeration for them to claim they would spend their whole lives together. For all that, they still hid the fact that they’d progressed to more… physical endeavors. That they still felt the need for some kind of self-preservation by keeping it a secret, from their parents and by association from anyone else, felt just a bit wrong, but… it wouldn’t be long now before their circumstances changed, she knew.

Then again, deep down, she was almost certain they already knew. And no one said a word.

When they got to her house, while her parents went next door to get the twins, Maya opened the door to let them in.

“Should I go change, let your eyes uncross a bit?” she teased. “Or do you prefer I stay this way?” While they had a whole of two minutes to themselves, she _could_ tease him, just a bit. He genuinely looked speechless on what answer to give her. “Right, get a good look, I’m going to go change before you have an aneurysm or something,” she patted his shoulders before heading down to the basement.

When she reemerged from below a few minutes later, her face scrubbed clean, long hair restrained into a ponytail, with one of the band shirts and jeans, she found Lucas sat on the couch, Gracie perched in his lap, while Nellie stood on the ground next to him, making her stuffed elephant ‘walk’ (or launch sharply in the air before smashing back down and going up again a moment later, whichever way you wanted to describe it) on the couch.

“Look out, look out, it’s Nellie and Ellie’s wild flying adventures!” Maya intoned in a sing-song voice, as she scooped up her little sister, elephant and all into her arms, rewarded in giggles and wriggles before the small girl held up Ellie the Elephant. Knowing full well what Nellie wanted, Maya gave the toy a pronounced kiss atop its head, with a ‘mwah!’ and everything. Nellie just kept on beaming. “So, what do you want to do?” Maya turned back to Lucas, tapping his leg with her toes.

“Well…” he started, thinking, looking to Gracie in his lap, staring back up at him, and to Maya, still absently jostling Nellie along as she waited for his answer. “Wouldn’t say no to throwing the ball around for a while,” he declared.

“Didn’t you just do that not an hour ago? Remember, there were suits…” she gestured to herself.

“Trust me, I won’t be forgetting anytime soon,” he shook his head, and she smirked. “But, well, it’s not the same, playing with the team and with you. Plus, I know how you get, watching and not playing,” he added. He had her there.

So, the twins were placed back in the care of their parents, and Maya led Lucas to the backyard, where she scooped up the ball from the ground with the same energy as she’d done in taking up her little sister. Pivoting around to face him, she tossed Lucas the ball.

“Because you guys won today, you get the first shot,” she indicated the basket.

“Well, thank you,” he tipped his head to her and started to move forward. She stopped him, planting her hand at his chest for a moment.

“I’m still gonna have to wipe the floor with you though,” she warned, her face scrunching with mischief.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” he just mock sighed, leaning over to kiss her before they could go and start playing.

She didn’t know what was better, the fact that he so gladly accepted getting beaten this way, or to imagine what it must have looked like, him towering over her and her still fully on top of the situation. Then again, she’d played enough against tall girls who’d first approach her, thinking she’d be easy to get around, only to get schooled in one play. Lucas had never underestimated her, never would.

With the game done, they went in to get something to drink before returning to sit outside.

“So, have you and Scott started planning for this year’s party?” he asked her, and she smiled.

“Oh, a while ago, yeah. Not that I’ll tell you anything,” she shook her head. He made a face at this, like ‘why not?’ “It’s going to be a surprise,” she insisted.

“But…”

“No buts, Huckleberry, don’t even try,” Maya sat up straight, chin raised, fully locked in poker face mode.

“But I have so many tricks,” he leaned to whisper at her ear, not wanting his next words to be heard, should her parents come poke their heads out the back door. As she listened, her jaw dropped just a bit.

“Lucas Friar, why, I never,” she turned back to look at him, trying so hard not to burst out laughing. “You play a tough game,” she shook her head, clasping his face in her hands. He nodded in agreement. She tip-tapped at his cheeks before whispering back. “Still not telling.” He bowed his head. “If you still want to try, I mean at this point I’m kind of curious to see where you’d go from… that…”

“Are you sure you’re ready for that?” he asked, breaching the inch of space between their faces to kiss her, once, and twice, and another time or so before letting the next one linger longer than a peck. For several seconds after that, they both forgot about parties and surprises. And when they broke from the kiss, still smiling to one another, it did feel as though they were ready to set the subject aside… for now.

“Next year, when the new season starts, we’ll have to drive down from Houston to see some of the games, yeah?” she told him.

“Definitely,” he agreed. “Double game days.”

“Very efficient, very fair,” Maya agreed back.

Lucas would have dinner with them that night. It wasn’t one of those things that needed to be asked anymore. He was here, it was almost dinner time, and there was a plate for him waiting on the table. When they were done eating, they took their dessert and went to sit outside again, the better to enjoy the weather they’d been having all week. As they ate, she finally told Lucas the whole story of how the girls had gotten their suits, and the process of getting ready and make sure they’d surprise the guys.

“We were definitely surprised,” Lucas confirmed, grinning.

Maya laughed, but then she paused, squinting as her attention was drawn to a figure walking up the street toward her house. She set her bowl aside on the top step as she got up on her feet.

“Riley?” she spoke to herself, the girl still too far to hear either way. Lucas turned to look where she was looking, and he saw her, too. The closer she got, the feeling coming off of the way she walked, the more they saw of her face, was simply ‘something’s wrong.’

“Go,” he nodded toward her, while he took their bowls back into the house. Maya hardly had to be told, and she hurried off to meet her oldest friend, sprinting until she reached her. She only had to touch her arm that Riley was now wrapping herself around her, squeezing tight like she’d been moving all this time solely on the promise of this embrace.

“Hey… hey… what’s the matter? Look at me,” Maya hummed, rubbing at the girl’s back before she finally did as told. Looking at her face, it was clear she’d been crying until not too long ago. “What happened?” she asked, not allowing their gaze to break from one another. Riley sniffled, and then she told her. She and Scott had just broken up.

TO BE CONTINUED


	316. Their Rally to Understand

Maya did not need to explain herself. Once she got back to her house with Riley, she sent her on ahead toward the basement before turning to Lucas and quietly informing him about Riley and Scott’s breakup. He was as surprised to hear about it as she’d been, but just as quickly he said he would leave the two of them be. Maya kissed him, promising to call him later and catch him up, and then she saw him out.

Getting down to her room, she found her best friend of old presently curled up on her bed, with Queen laid out at her side, peacefully receiving the head scratches of the heartbroken girl. The other dogs were resting back in their spot under the stairs, looking like they felt the mood in the room and knew they were better off giving space to their guest.

“Hey,” Maya moved up to the bed, climbing over both dog and girl to sit with her back to the wall. “Want to talk about it?” she slowly asked. Riley sniffled. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Maya promised, rubbing at the brunette’s back. “You just stay right here, all night if you have to, yeah?” Riley stayed quiet, but there seemed to be a small sort of release in her. She’d gotten to where she needed to be, with Maya, and already that was a big help.

They stayed this way for near on an hour before Riley turned herself around to face her friend. Maya met her gaze with patience and openness. They may not have had a breakup themselves, but Riley had certainly gotten to hear about a heavy dose of hers and Lucas’ drama over time, and she’d always been there, so where else would Maya be right now?

“We went to his house after the game,” Riley quietly started. “We watched a movie, helped his siblings with some project for their school. They wanted to know about what I was going to do next year, and I told them about how we were all moving to Houston.” Maya nodded without interrupting, though Riley went quiet for a beat, too. “I could see there was something on his mind. Scott’s… After we left his siblings, I asked him what was the matter.

“He said he still didn’t get why I had to go to Houston when I could have stayed here. H-he wasn’t being mean about it, I mean I didn’t want to leave him behind either, but what was I supposed to do, not go to college until next year so we could go to the same place together?” Again, Maya didn’t intervene, just let her continue. It took another sigh before she would respond. “After that though, we kept on talking, and next thing I knew… it was over.”

Maya moved to lie down next to her, and she opened her arms out so Riley would scoot over and she could hold her.

“You can fix it, can’t you?” Maya asked, carefully brushing hair from her friend’s face.

“No, I don’t think we can,” Riley spoke slowly. There was such finality in it, Maya couldn’t make herself insist on the matter. It was really over.

“So, you just came here from his house… Did you have dinner?”

“Not really, but I… I’m not really hungry,” Riley shrugged.

“I’ve got cake…” Maya declared, and a pair of puffy eyes turned up to her.

“Chocolate?” Riley asked, and Maya gave her a conspiratorial smile.

“Devil’s food,” she confirmed, and there was no need to ask. She slid her way back to the ground and started for the steps up to the ground floor. She stopped halfway up. “You’re staying here tonight, no buts about it,” she announced, and a miniscule smile wrestled itself on to her best friend’s face. “I’ll take care of it,” she promised before continuing up the stairs.

As it turned out, the foregone conclusion of Riley’s spending the night had not only touched on Maya’s mind but her parents’ as well. When she came from the basement in search of the promised cake, her parents inquired as to Riley’s state, and she told them what she felt able to share without betraying her friend’s trust. Then, when she asked if it was alright if she stayed the night, her mother waved her hand dismissively, informing her she’d already spoken with Topanga and it was settled.

Maya gave her mother a great long hug before grabbing the half of a cake, two forks and the pint of milk, and heading back to the stairs into her room. The smell of chocolate that followed her trail was not long to get the dogs’ attention, and they had to be willed up the stairs before they got their noses where they didn’t belong.

Finally, Maya and Riley sat on the floor, the cake dish passing from one to the other as they watched the movie Maya had loaded on her computer, one she knew could cheer Riley up at any time. It might not have been able to get her to a hundred percent, but it would do what it needed to do.

By the end of the movie, the cake was gone, and Riley was asleep with her head in Maya’s lap. It took a text sent up to her father’s phone to summon Shawn down to help her lift the sleeping Riley back on to the bed, after which Maya took care of settling her in for the night. Picking up the dish and everything, taking them back to the kitchen, Maya stepped out into the yard with her phone, putting in the call to Lucas she’d promised him. She couldn’t explain it, but right now she really needed to hear his voice, needed the smile it would create within her.

TO BE CONTINUED


	317. Their Rally to Share

Lucas wasn’t sure what to do after he left Maya’s house. There was the tiniest part of him that wanted to go and find Scott and ask what had happened. Both he and Riley were his friends, and while Scott was not only on the basketball team with him but also his captain, he’d been friends with Riley longer and, maybe because of her ties to Maya, because he’d seen how upset she’d been, he wanted to know what Scott could have said to make her like that. He didn’t like when his friends were hurt, not one bit.

He didn’t go to the Shelby house though. He went on back to his house, where he was greeted by his parents. He never let anything appear on his face and betray the conflict in his head at any time. When he finally went up to his room though, the mask slid away, returning his features to a furrowed brow and a difficulty for sitting still.

He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. Should he be calling on their other friends? No, no, it wasn’t his place to tell. Besides, there was no guarantee this would actually stick, right? Zay and Nadine had broken up once, and it had barely lasted long enough to register. And then he and Maya… They hadn’t been broken up, no, but they’d been at odds, for a few terrible days, and now… now they were good again. Maybe Riley and Scott would be okay again, too, eventually.

But if they weren’t… He’d feel bad for her… he’d feel bad for both of them.

When his phone vibrated, he knew before looking at the screen that it would be Maya, calling him as she’d promised. A couple of hours had gone by since he’d left her house, so she must have been on damage control the whole time.

“Hey,” he answered.

“Hey, sorry I didn’t get to call earlier.” He could just hear sounds on the line that made him think she might have been out of doors.

“It’s fine,” Lucas promised. “How’s Riley?”

“Sleeping with a belly full of cake,” Maya reported, and he chuckled.

“Good choice,” he declared.

“She seemed to think so, too,” Maya told him. There was a beat of silence, both of them knowing what needed saying after this. Lucas knew she’d want to confide in someone, and if she was ever in need of a willing ear where the words would never be spoken where they weren’t meant to be spoken, he was her guy and she knew it. “She doesn’t think they’ll get back together,” Maya finally said, and he let out a breath.

When she told him the gist of what Riley had told her, he felt a sinking in his stomach. If he thought back over the last few weeks, back to the point where Riley had told the rest of them about her decision to move to Houston with Maya and Dylan and Sophie and him, he _had_ noticed a change in Scott. It was subtle, only visible when the boy was left to his own thoughts and wasn’t concerned over anyone’s noticing him, but Lucas _had_ seen. He had seen conflict, he had seen sadness, he had seen frustration. He just hadn’t connected the dots to think it might have had anything to do about his relationship with Riley.

“Do _you_ think they’ll get back together?” Lucas asked Maya. She didn’t reply right away, but even in her lack of words he could understand what her answer would be.

“I don’t know if they will, but,” she paused, like it pained her to say it, “I don’t think they should. She’ll either change her mind about moving and end up regretting it, or she’ll go anyway, and they’ll try long distance and it won’t work and it’ll only make things worse for both of them when they’ve got a chance to hang on to a friendship, at the least.”

“Yeah…” was all he could say, because she’d said exactly what he’d been thinking, too. “We can’t stop them, whatever they decide,” he added.

“I know,” she replied, and he could practically see the frown in her voice. “So, she’s spending the night, and then tomorrow… I don’t know, depending how she’s feeling…”

“Call or text, let me know if you want me rallying the troops,” he filled in before she had to ask. Now, what he heard was a smile.

“I figured you might,” she spoke, and he smiled back. “I really wish I could hug you right now, just for the record.”

“Recorded, and likewise,” he assured her.

“Can you just stay on the line with me for a little while?”

“I will stay as long as you need me to… I might have to plug in my charger though.” That made her laugh, and _that_ made him laugh back.

He kept his promise, even as, for the most part, neither of them said anything. All she wanted, all she needed, was some kind of token, the closest thing to actually having him by her side, and that was what he provided. He listened, the sounds of the evening air eventually replaced by the quieter inside of the small house. He could hear her parents vaguely in the distance, the creak of the steps into the basement. Eventually, he knew she’d gone to lie down at Riley’s side.

They both fell asleep that night with their phones still gripped in their hands, like two ends of a lifeline between them.

TO BE CONTINUED


	318. Their Rally to Listen

Lucas had hesitated, to some degree, about what he was on his way to do. For the most part he had been telling himself that he should stay out of this situation with Riley and Scott, that it would have been intruding for him to get involved. But then, on Sunday morning, he’d started to consider it again and the point of view had shifted, just a bit.

Here, it brought him to think… Those two were both his friends, and for having teetered on the edge of a break up and felt how much it could hurt, he was forgetting something by not getting involved. Riley had Maya there to help her cope, but who was going to do the same for Scott? For all that Maya had told him about what Riley had told _her_ , he could see it… There had been none spared from pain in this scenario.

So, here he was now, headed to the Shelby house. Even as he approached, he could hear the familiar thump thump of a basketball dribbling against the ground, from somewhere beyond the house. Instead of ringing the bell, he went ahead and let himself into the yard, following the sound until he reached its source. He found Scott, leaning against the basket’s pole, the ball moving from his hand to the ground and back like he was stuck on a loop, even though his mind was nowhere near here.

Lucas let out a sigh and moved forward to join his friend and teammate, getting close enough that he could have reached out his arm and swiped the ball from him before Scott actually blinked and realized he was there.

“What are you doing here, I…” Scott kept on blinking, looking around in a dazed sort of confusion. But then a sliver of clarity reached him and he sighed. “Who told you?”

“No one, technically. But Riley came to Maya’s house last night, and I was there, so…” When he said Riley’s name, there was a change in the other boy’s face. He looked so sad all of a sudden, and Lucas wasn’t sure what to say next, so he said the first thing that came to mind. “You want to play?” he nodded to the ball. Scott looked down at the thing in his hands like he was just remembering that he was holding it.

“Okay,” he shrugged, non-committal, and the two boys started to play. It was just as well that no points were actually being counted, because it would have been a very dull score. Scott didn’t seem able to find the focus to make himself take a shot, and Lucas sort of felt too bad for how easy it would have been to get around him and score, so… he didn’t. They weren’t so much playing as each of them would dribble the ball for a few seconds before tossing it to the other. And they would carry on like this, back and forth.

Eventually, when there really was no point in either of them carrying on this charade, they stopped, and they went to sit at the patio table.

“You okay?” Lucas asked. It was sort of a ridiculous question to ask, but it was an easy path into conversation, so he asked it. He watched Scott as the boy considered the two words in silence for a while.

“What would it say about me if I was?” he finally said, in lieu of a statement that he wasn’t okay. “I kept telling myself that it wouldn’t be a problem. I mean, Asher and Ray have been fine, even with Asher being here and Ray all the way in New York…” Lucas nodded in agreement, although he knew there _had_ been some rough spots here and there for the two boys. When it came down to it, the rough patches would soften back up again in no time. “But the more I thought about it, I just… I couldn’t do it, and I can’t explain why.”

There was this sort of finality in his words, and Lucas thought back to what Maya had told him, about whether she thought Scott and Riley would get back together… or if they even _should_ get back together.

“I’m sorry, Scott,” he told him, and he meant it. Scott looked at him, silent gratitude on his face. Lucas was getting to see now, as bad as it might have sounded, maybe that was as far as Scott and Riley had ever been meant to go together as a couple. A chapter in their lives, now brought to its inevitable end. Better it ended at a point where friendship could be salvaged, no?

“Did you… Do you know… How is she?” Scott asked after a moment of silence. _Riley…_

“I don’t know,” Lucas admitted. “I saw her last night when she came to Maya’s house.” She’d been crying, looked lost in her thoughts… “Maya said they watched a movie… had some cake… then Riley spent the night at her house, I… I’m supposed to go and meet them over there after I leave here,” he admitted.

“Right… okay…” Scott took this in. “Can you… Would you, just… keep me posted?” The boy felt awkward for asking, but Lucas understood, and he nodded. It was the least he could do. “What do I do tomorrow, at school?” They may not have been in the same grade, with Scott a junior and the rest of them seniors, but they still hung out, all of them, of course, with he and Riley being a couple… until now. Were they supposed to cut him out of their group now?

“I don’t know,” Lucas admitted. “I’ll try and figure that out, too, I’ll let you know,” he promised. Scott nodded; what else was there to say? Soon, Lucas took off to join Maya and Riley at his girlfriend’s house, as he’d said he would. As he walked, he heard the dribbling rhythm start again.

TO BE CONTINUED


	319. Their Rally to Support

The next morning, when Lucas left to make his way to Maya’s house, not only knowing that he was going to be picking up both girls at once but also that they wouldn’t have to make the stop over at the Matthews house to get Riley, he decided to get in his grandfather’s car and drive instead of making for the bus stop. They’d have more time.

From what he’d seen of their friend the other night, from what Maya had told him when they’d spoken later on after his return home, he knew that while some of the edge had worn off in the day after the breakup, Riley was still very much in that headspace and thus still recovering. Today, once they’d all be in class, she’d hopefully have something to focus on that wasn’t the end of her relationship with Scott, but until then, if they could give her something to start her on the right path…

He texted Maya before leaving, and that was how the plan had come together. He drove to the house, picked up his girlfriend and their friend, and they went off to have breakfast at Ma Maggie’s.

He hadn’t known Riley as long as Maya had known her, hadn’t known her as deeply as she did. The bond between the two of them was a rare sort of thing, and today he could see it so well. Maya was hurting, because Riley was hurting. She wanted to take that pain away, even though she knew it _needed_ to be felt. It left her in this space of discomfort, which made _him_ need to act.

The breakfast wasn’t going to make Riley suddenly and magically all better, but by the time they left the restaurant and got back into the car to head to school, she looked like she might be ready to face that day about to start. Lucas and Maya shared a look, as good as a fist bump. So far, so good.

It wasn’t until they were outside school, sitting on the bench as they would be most every morning, that the potential/eventual hitch in their plan revealed itself.

Sooner or later, Scott would show up for school, too. They didn’t have classes together, but they’d see each other. What would happen to this fragile shell they’d built up around Riley with waffles and pancakes and other breakfast goodies when she saw him?

By the time the opportunity came for them to find out the answer, most of the others had arrived. Only Nadine had seen Riley since the news of the breakup had been allowed to softly make the rounds, as she’d come over to Maya’s house the afternoon before. The others had thought it best to keep their distance at least for that day and give their friend some space.

When they arrived now, this morning, they all showed the friends they were, showing their affection and concern for Riley, with hugs, with words, with offered cookies from their GiGi… And then Rebecca spotted Scott coming up the path toward the school. She tapped Maya’s arm and nodded in his direction, which drew Riley’s attention and made her look toward him.

“Riley?” Maya looked over to her friend. In that one word, in that name, she was asking what the other girl wanted them to do. It was her call, really, not theirs. She looked at her friend and saw her mind at work behind her eyes. Riley Matthews was sunshine and life, so much of the time, so much that seeing clouds around her felt fundamentally wrong, but it also left some people to underestimate what levels of strength she might have had in her.

They’d all been bracing for her to break at the slightest provocation, but right then… Right then, she saw Scott Shelby, her first and now former boyfriend out there, looking in every way like he was aware he was being observed and didn’t know how to respond, and she made a decision.

“He’s our friend,” she declared, and that was that. Just like her name had been loaded with questions, her reply was full of answers. It said that there would be no sides taken, no anger, no pushing anyone away. She would be okay. She might have been hurt more if they _did_ go and turn a cold shoulder to Scott.

Dylan was the one to jog over to the boy and escort him toward the rest of them around the bench. He came slowly, with hesitation, and when he came to a stop there, within the cluster of his friends, he looked around at all of them for a moment, seeing for himself that they were all okay. Then he looked to Riley, sitting on the bench, between Maya and Nadine. She looked back at him. What conversation went on in those silent looks was not for the rest of them to intrude on.

And that was that. There was still some level of awkwardness as they all hung out before the start of the day, and there would be some of that again at lunch, and any time where their paths would cross with the Shelby boy, but there would be less of it every time, until there hardly seemed to be any of that left when the day was over. But for all the awkwardness it had been made clear that the break, whether or not it really did remain a break, would be between Riley and Scott, not between Scott and the rest of his group of friends here.

TO BE CONTINUED


	320. Their Rally to Carry On

When Maya had gotten the call about a slot opening for a gig and now being offered to TXNY, for the coming weekend, she’d hesitated about saying yes at first. Maybe Riley wouldn’t be up for it, maybe she needed more time to process this break up of hers. But when she’d told her and Nadine about the call, Riley had declared with ease that she wanted to do it.

“Are you sure?” Maya had asked her, her eyes searching her old friend’s face for any signs of underlying emotions that could have betrayed her statement.

“I am,” Riley had told her, and when Maya could only see it as being genuine, that had decided it. They had a performance on Saturday night.

So, they went into pre-performance mode, which meant style picks, a set list, and some practice, short or long, every afternoon on through the week.

That Tuesday afternoon, their first practice session, the three girls gathered at Maya’s house, down in the basement, the better to set things in motion. By now they had developed something of a shorthand when it came to picking their clothes and deciding which songs they’d do, so it wouldn’t take too long to lock it down. If they had a new song, as they did this time, they would decide whether to introduce it into their set or wait for another occasion.

“I think we should do it,” Nadine declared, sweeping a look toward Maya with a slight tilt toward Riley which the blonde interpreted as ‘it might be good for her.’

“Yeah? Riley, what do you think?” Maya took this in stride. Riley looked up toward her, thinking it over. They had only just received the track from Smackle, hadn’t even performed it together, the three of them here.

“Can we have it ready by Saturday?” she finally asked the others.

“We can practice it, and if we decide it’s not ready by Saturday, we just replace it with another. No one has to know,” Nadine suggested. Maya turned back to Riley.

“What do you think?” she asked. Riley only nodded. They were all set to start.

The last two days at school had been kind of an up and down sort of thing. Maya had done her best to be there for her friend, to spot out the moments where she might have been feeling the downward pull of the breakup and make sure she didn’t get pulled too far down. And there had been those down moments. Maya had taken to refer to them as recalls.

Riley would say or do something that either called back on some past event that had involved her and Scott together, or she would set about doing something she would have previously done with him, and then she’d stop, and she’d have to remember they weren’t together anymore, and then down she went. And there would be Maya, trying to pull her back up until she could go on walking again.

After two days of it, of her, and Scott, and the rest of them, all getting back into the normal rhythm of things, the new normal of it, Maya did feel as though all would be well in the end… it just would take a little while. But they were there, all of them, and they would get their friends – both of them – through this moment in time.

Practice went well. It always had this secret power about it, this power to make them feel a bit bolder, a bit more awake, thriving… alive… They never felt it so much as they did when they were on stage, but it still did plenty in this setup, too.

The new song was a very upbeat and danceable one, and it couldn’t have come at a better time, like Isadora Smackle, off in New York, had foretold its need when she’d written and composed it. They always managed to pull the ear of a parent or two when they’d be performing a new song, though they would joke that the faster they drew in an audience, the bigger the song would be. And within all of twenty seconds of starting the instrumental track, allowing them to give the lyrics a try, there was Katy on the steps, with Nellie in her arms.

They’d shift practice to the Matthews house from the next day onward, where they’d have their instruments, but already the vocal practice of the new song felt good, like they had something on their hands, the kind of song that, if it really took off the way they felt it could, oh… it might become a staple for them, in all their shows going forward.

When at last they called an end to the day’s practice, the three girls plopped down on Maya’s bed, crowding together around the camera they’d set up, so they could review how the new song sounded. They did this from time to time, occasionally posted it online, too.

“We _have_ to do it on Saturday,” Riley declared with a smile as they watched and listened together.

“Then we’ll make sure it’s ready,” Maya promised her, tipping her head to touch to hers.

“This part right here,” Nadine chuckled, reaching up her hand to point at the camera screen, and they all laughed, reenacting the looks on their faces. “Maybe tone it down a bit.”

“And miss on _this_ goofy mess?” Maya gasped in pretend scandal. It made Riley laugh again, which filled her friends with renewed gladness.

They would miss these moments. The closer they got to the end of the year, to summer and their moves – Maya and Riley to Houston and Nadine to Boston – the closer they got to the further partition of their little band. They still didn’t have a solution for how to ensure the survival of TXNY, but they knew… they knew it didn’t deserve to die because they were off to school. Somehow, it would survive, even if they had to turn it into… TXNYMA or something.

TO BE CONTINUED


	321. Their Rally to Protect

Saturday came upon them in a flash, the days gone and melted away by classes, and band practice, and whatever else would require of the three girls’ time until they arrived at this moment, all of them gathered at the Matthews house, wiling away the last hour before they were due to depart for the club where TXNY was set to perform.

Maya had set the task upon Lucas, to ensure that everyone would get to Riley’s, ready to see to it that she was good and pumped up for the performance instead of contemplating whether or not Scott would be there. Before this week, whenever they’d had a show, he would be there, front and center for his girlfriend, ready to cheer her on. But now…

It wasn’t to say that Scott _wouldn’t_ be there. Truth be told, they hadn’t known whether or not to ask him, hadn’t mentioned any of it whenever he was around them. He would have found out about it one way or the other, but then what would he have thought at the fact that they’d acted like there was nothing to know all along? Would he come anyway, or would he stay away? There was no telling, and all they could do – Riley more than any of them – was to speculate.

“You told Zay about not… you know?” Maya whispered to Nadine, as they heard Auggie Matthews call out that he could see the others coming toward the house.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it,” Nadine whispered back. Both Maya and Nadine had quickly come to the thought that they might show enough courtesy at least, to not be too ‘touchy’ with Lucas and Zay respectively, not with Riley there. It would just have felt like flaunting their relationships, and Riley probably wouldn’t have called them on it, but then she would have felt it, felt the absence of her own supporting boyfriend, and they couldn’t do that to her, couldn’t and wouldn’t.

Soon, the Matthews house was overtaken by the pack of teens on the verge of graduation, on this night not at all taken with that brand of stress born out of what amount of school work they had left to do. Tonight, they were here for the music, and to support their friends.

Each of them had their own way of giving Riley what attention they felt they could give, what attention she might need. As far as her bandmates went, well they had been there at her side all through the week, of course, and they would continue to be, most of all later on at the club, when they took to the stage.

Here, it was the rest of them who did their bit. Zay, as ever, came armed with GiGi’s cookies, forever his cure to any and all ailment. Asher showed her a video he’d found, knowing it would get a laugh out of her. Dylan led her in a rendition of one of their songs, complete with a dance that made her laugh so hard she couldn’t breathe for a bit.

When it was finally time for them to make their way to the club, they split off in two cars. Lucas drove one, carrying the girls from the band along with Sophie, while Rebecca drove the Garcia twins, Dylan, and Zay. In the first car, much as her friends had worked to keep her mind off the Scott of it all, they could just see something in Riley’s eyes drift to the side as they drove on, like she was still thinking about whether or not he would be there tonight.

Maya, sitting in the front next to Lucas, shared a silent look with her boyfriend, and there would have been no words needed for either of them to ponder this out together. Each of them had been left to go back and forth on the question all week. On the one side, they had to wonder if it would have been better to address the matter upfront, tell Scott not to come to the show. On the other… maybe Riley needed him to be there, not out of some attempt to mend things between the two of them as a couple, but as friends…

To see how the break looked and felt so genuine, so final, it was hard to describe what it made them feel. They didn’t want to go and start comparing one relationship and the other, but wasn’t that what they did? Here was the knowledge that two of their friends had parted from one another, which made them feel like they needed to acknowledge, just him and her, that _their_ relationship was still firm and unshaken…

They didn’t know what the future would hold for Riley and Scott, but one way or another, they would be there to support their friends.

When they arrived at the club, the girls went off backstage, while the rest of them went in with the rest of the audience. Before they went their separate ways, Maya turned her head, catching Lucas’ gaze, a quick hand gesture passing one more message. _If he shows up, let me know._ Lucas nodded, and she was off with the band.

Everything was set, their instruments were ready, they were right on schedule… Now they just had to wait for the call to hit the stage. Until they got that, they went and retreated to the room they’d been pointed to. They had developed enough of a pre-show routine that they were able to concentrate on that in their effort to keep Riley’s mind where it needed to be, and that was good. Five minutes before they were set to go on, Maya’s phone had buzzed in her pocket.

She didn’t even need to look, but she did it anyway. It was from Lucas. _Landed._ She didn’t know if this was a reference to the costume astronaut helmet which they’d once found at the Shelby house, but it telegraphed his message as vague and focused as they could need it to be. Scott had arrived.

TO BE CONTINUED


	322. Their Rally to Move On

There had been very little time to figure out what to do and how to do it. They were due on stage in all of two minutes, and unless they wanted this performance to tank, then something needed to be done.

“Go and tell them to stall for like five minutes,” Maya whispered to Nadine. “Find an excuse, girl troubles, something, just get us five minutes, okay?” Nadine looked down at the phone in Maya’s hand, understanding, and she gave a nod before scurrying off.

“Where’s she going, we’re supposed to…” Riley watched her go, frowning, before turning to Maya, even as the blonde caught up her hands to grasp her attention.

“I need to ask you something,” Maya started. Riley looked momentarily confused, and just a bit apprehensive, but she didn’t argue, so Maya went on. “You still want Scott to be your friend, yeah?” Now Riley’s face wavered, just a bit.

“I do,” she breathed out. “He’s a really good guy, he didn’t do anything wrong, we just… It didn’t work out.” It was the first time she stated it all, maybe even the first time she’d thought it at all, and it looked as though just hearing herself say it had an effect, like she was letting out a breath she’d been needing to release for days.

“So, you would want him to be here tonight, watching us play up there?” Maya asked her. Riley responded with a nod, though there was something in her face as she gave it, like she didn’t believe he would be. When Maya smiled at her, Riley’s face bloomed open once more, curious, hopeful. Was he here? Really? “Ready to do this?” Maya asked her, and with a breath taken and released, Riley assured her that she was absolutely ready.

Nadine’s stalling tactics had worked, and really, they were no more than a minute later than they might have been. Soon, they were introduced as they took their places on stage, and to hear the audience cheer them on… It never got old, never lost the effect it had on them, filling them with such energy that the performance flowed from them like breathing.

Standing up there at the forefront, Maya could see into the sea of faces, see how they hopped and moved along to the music, some of them even singing along, and it could only solidify her determination not to let the band die when they all went to college. She was already losing basketball, she couldn’t lose this, too.

She could see their friends, all in a cluster. She could see Scott, standing among them. Inevitably, her eyes would find and stay with Lucas, seeing the way he looked back at her, with so much pride and love aimed in her direction. It only kept her going, kept her energy through the roof.

The new song was received with as much curiosity and giddiness as they could have wanted it to be. And when they reached their last song, they were asked for more. They did three covers here, songs they’d find themselves playing just for fun, just the three of them, sometimes with Smackle joining in via Skype.

When at last the show came to an end and the girls left the stage, they were filled to the top with exhilaration and a head-spinning sort of exhaustion, over-heated but happy.

“I’ll be back,” Riley told Maya and Nadine before moving off on her own. The other two only had to share a look to know where she was going. They didn’t think she was going to try and restart her couple status with Scott, but maybe they needed to have a proper conversation, as friends.

“I’ll get us something to drink,” Nadine went toward the back.

“And food, get food, please,” Maya called after her, and Nadine raised her hand in confirmation.

“You look like you’re going to melt,” she heard, turning to find Lucas walking toward her. She let out a breath as he came to a stop in front of her, looking like he wasn’t sure if he should hug her or if she was too hot for contact.

“I just might,” Maya chuckled. In response, he pulled a small folding fan from his back pocket, springing it open and letting it do its work. She gasped, amused and confused. “Where did you…”

“Found it at Pappy Joe’s the other day, thought it might come in handy and he said I could take it. Now look at that, it _did_ come in handy,” he explained, smiling as she turned her head this way and that in order to get more wind. “Must have belonged to my grandmother.”

It had finally been decided, though it had been a struggle on all parts, that Pappy Joe would remain at his son’s house permanently. Slowly but surely, they had been sorting through his belongings at his old home, keeping, donating, throwing away… As determined as the man could be, they knew it was difficult for him to accept this change, though he knew it would be for the best.

“Okay, I think you’ve stabilized the melting, now if you don’t mind…” she opened out her arms, and he smiled, wrapping his arms around her in turn.

“You were amazing tonight,” he told her. “You were so amazing that ‘amazing’ stopped being enough,” he added, and she turned up a bit of a bashful smile. “Really, you were. You need to send me that new song.”

“Already did,” she promised him, as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head, sweat or no sweat. “How did it go with Scott out there?” she finally had to ask, too curious not to know already.

All of them there, out in the audience, as soon as they’d seen him arrive, had in many ways responded just as Riley would have wanted them to respond. They made no comment one way or the other as to whether or not Scott should be there. Instead, they greeted him as they always had, like he was just one of the gang, and he joined them in the audience. All through the show, as far as Lucas had been able to tell, he’d been just as he always was, at a TXNY show. Even if they were only going to be friends going forward, Riley was the one he was and would always be closest to, and that didn’t change.

As Nadine rejoined her and Lucas, with water and chips, Maya led them on ahead to where they might find their missing bandmate. They found her sitting at a table in a corner, with Scott, the two of them talking in a happy and animated way, as friends would. There was little need for them to do anything but let them be, so that was what they did, after dropping off some refreshments for Riley. Nadine went on to join Zay and the others.

Maya and Lucas left the club rather than sticking around. They got into his car and started on their way back to her house, in no hurry, just enjoying the evening and the breeze. Maya was still buzzing with the post-show energy, and it led to much singing, which then led to chuckles and giggles. She knew he wasn’t nearly as bad of a singer as he was making himself sound to be. He just knew it would crack her up to hear him exaggerate, so he did… a lot… and it worked.

When they arrived at her house, the car pulled to a stop, and she sighed, moving across the seat to lay her head on his shoulder. He was more than happy to pass his arm around her shoulders, holding her close. She didn’t want this moment to end, this night. She had come to a point in her life where she hated saying goodbye to him, every evening or afternoon, and she knew he was feeling it, too. In next to no time they wouldn’t _have_ to say goodbye at the end of the day, not anymore, and maybe for that, they couldn’t stand the moments when they still had to.

“This was a good one,” Lucas breathed as they sat there, and she nodded her head in agreement. He didn’t even have to specify and she knew what he meant. It wasn’t just the show, it was the whole day, it was everything they had been able to accomplish today, what the end of this day had settled. The band had given one of their best shows to date. The two of them had this moment here, peacefully sitting and enjoying holding the other near. And somewhere, two of their friends had found a way to mend toward a new future together, ready to forge ahead.

TO BE CONTINUED


	323. Her Bond of Growth

Their senior year seemed to have hit that part of the rollercoaster tracks where the cars just zipped right on down, no stalling, nothing, not until it would be over. Weeks were passing them by, and now here they were, well into the month of May and nearing the end of their high school days at an alarming speed.

It wasn’t as though they weren’t anxious for it to be over… mostly. Truth be told, there was still plenty they weren’t ready to let go of yet, as much as there were things they couldn’t wait to get to. Prom, and graduation, and the summer to follow, _that_ … that they were looking forward to. But the closer they got to it, to leaving high school, the more they started to feel the pull that this place had for them. So long as they were here, they didn’t have to change, did they? They could still be exactly who they were and not have to… well… grow up.

Maya was just as divided as any of the others. There were mornings where she would wake up and feel ready… She would want the time to come already for her and her friends to head off on their trip to Europe, this trip they’d been planning, as strange as it was to consider, for nearly three years now. And she couldn’t wait to make this new home in Houston, with Lucas, and Riley, and Sophie, and Dylan. She couldn’t wait to start college, to see what life had to offer.

Then there were the other mornings, the ones where the very thought of leaving her little house behind, her school, Austin… The very thought of it made her feel sort of claustrophobic, like the walls were closing in on her.

Sure, she knew that it wasn’t like the house would just up and disappear once she went to Houston. She would still get to come back to it when she visited her parents and her sisters, but that would be all she really did from then on, wouldn’t it? She’d be a visitor. Even after college was over in a few years, it wasn’t like she’d move back in. Either she’d keep living in that house they’d be getting, or she’d get a different place, maybe still in Houston, or back here in Austin, or somewhere else entirely for all she knew.

This wouldn’t be her home anymore, it would be her family’s home, and the mornings when she remembered it, they were the mornings she hated the most.

She was fairly good at pretending like all was fine, because on the whole she knew that it _was_ fine. She was more than familiar with the fear of the unknown that came with such a monumental shift in one’s life. She’d had one of those six years ago when they’d moved to Texas. Oh, how hard she’d fought against the idea, so much so that she’d tried to run back there, and now… Now she couldn’t imagine her life any other way, so she knew, if she just waited, she would look back on these fears for what was to come, and she would know she’d had nothing to worry about.

She was aware of that, she was, just… far in the back of her mind. At the front of her mind and everywhere else except that small hidden part though, there was only the panic and confusion, and she had to keep it hidden. At any moment she expected someone to see through her, but so far there had only been the one, as though it would have been any sort of surprise.

Lucas had taken one look at her, the first of those nightmare mornings, and as they’d started off from her house his hand had slipped to find hers, and as he held it she could feel the presence of an unspoken question. _What’s wrong?_ There had been no question in her as to whether or not it was ‘safe’ to tell him what she was feeling, as silly as it all sounded. It was Lucas, it wouldn’t matter to him that it was silly. If she felt it was important, he would treat it as important.

When she’d moved to Texas, all she’d had to cling to for familiarity had been her mother. Shawn hadn’t been here yet, and neither had Riley, and she hadn’t met any of her friends yet, hadn’t met Lucas. When she’d go to Houston, she’d have him and Riley and Dylan and Sophie. They were a shining beacon for her to trail and follow. She’d have them, and all would be well.

“We can drive down every weekend,” Lucas told her as they walked to school one Friday morning.

“We’ll have work to do for school,” she had to point out. “And work for… well, work.”

“We will find the time,” he wouldn’t be deterred, and it made her smile.

“Every weekend, really?”

“As long as you need to, until you’re okay in Houston,” he vowed. That was just the kind of promise he’d make, though it didn’t make hearing it any less of a light upon her heart.

“What about you though? _Your_ family?” The way he looked at her right then, she could practically hear him remind her that _she_ was his family, too.

“I have a good feeling my mother will want to drop in now and then… out of the blue… no warning…” he sighed dramatically, making her laugh.

“We’ll get some good locks for the doors,” she promised him.

“That wouldn’t stop her,” he shrugged.

“Yeah, no, probably wouldn’t,” she agreed. “Maybe we can put a tracker in her, whenever she’s in the city it’ll go ‘ding.’” Now _he_ laughed, and before she knew it she had forgotten all about the sour mood she’d been in when she’d woken up.

TO BE CONTINUED


	324. Her Bond of Peace

Much as she would have insisted on paying her own way through this trip on all fronts, her parents had insisted to pitch in on one thing and that was supplies, filling in the gaps in what she would need to bring along when they flew off to Europe over the summer. This meant a trip to the mall, all five of them together, Maya and her mother and father and the twins.

The process of getting them all into the car and on the road was a capital T Task already, getting Nellie and Gracie into their seats, along with what both Maya and Shawn had long been calling ‘their luggage…’ It could seem a straightforward sort of thing, but inevitably would end up involving several trips back into the house because something had been forgotten or one of the girls needed to be changed at the last minute…

Her mother and father could get caught up in this chaos of their own making easily enough, which made it just as well that Maya would be there with them, or else they’d end up never actually leaving at all. That image in her head usually made her sympathetically smile, but now it just reminded her of how she’d be miles and miles away in Houston before long, unable to step in as the great stabilizer she’d been, pulling her parents back from the brink of wandering back into the house for the seventh time.

Car rides with all of them together, they could be loud, with songs, with laughter, like they could be peaceful, the twins either sleeping or sitting contentedly in their seats. Today, it was a quiet ride, and Maya couldn’t help but get swallowed up in thoughts, taking in the image of her family around her. There were her little sisters, one on either side of her, Gracie sleeping and Nellie playing with her shoes and babbling to herself. There was her father at the wheel, her mother next to him.

She couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t the five of them. Well, that wasn’t exactly right. Of course, she remembered growing up with only her mother there, just the two of them for all those years. And she remembered Shawn coming into their lives, and all the time before the girls had been born. But all of those years were separated in time. It was always before this, before that, or ‘back when…’ Being part of this family she now had, it was her whole reality, and it was immutable.

Despite all this, sometimes she would look at her parents and marvel at who these two were, as people and as parents. On one side, here was her mother, who had been a parent for nineteen years. Motherhood was just a part of her, so deep in her that for a time, back when they’d lived in New York just the two of them, Maya couldn’t see it. She couldn’t understand all that being mother and sole parent and provider to her had meant, though in time she had figured it out well enough.

For as long as she’d been a mother, the arrival of the twins had been like getting tossed back to first grade and finding someone had changed the rules, and Maya had seen it in her, how she’d struggled to find that rhythm again, made that much more complicated for having had not one but two babies in her care. Even now, nearly two years after the girls were born, though she had gotten there, Maya would easily venture that it was nothing like what tending to her firstborn had been like for her mother.

And then her father… Shawn Hunter, who’d walked into their lives a little under six years ago without knowing that he was walking into _his_ life, too. The shape of his fatherhood had grown without any of them seeing it, and then all at once it existed, this bond between him and her that would change both of their lives for the better. She would never fault him for acknowledging it, but of course the arrival of Nellie and Gracie had been something else entirely, the birth of his own biological children, of children he had planned for and not merely had sneak into his heart.

Looking at him now, years into being her adoptive father, into being Nellie and Gracie’s father… Shawn had changed. It wasn’t a complete change, no. He was still very much Shawn Hunter at heart, but the definition of who he was had now expanded to include a few more articles. It included the fierce protectiveness he had always been capable of, brought to its peak. It included the kind of wackiness and ease that might have made his former self wonder how they could have been one and the same.

Together, they could be as scattered as they could be united, and Maya would look at them and just feel like she couldn’t have asked for any better people to call her parents. Was it any wonder that the thought of being separated from them would make her just a bit anxious? They were the dream of a long lonely childhood, and it still felt like she’d only just gotten them…

Gracie woke up just a couple minutes before they reached the mall. They all knew she was waking, thanks to Nellie, who somehow always seemed to know when her twin was waking up even without looking at her. There was that particular little squeal, and then they’d turn to look at Gracie, and there she’d be, blinking away her nap. Maya smirked, reaching out for her waking sister’s small hand, turning back and taking one of her squealing sister’s, too.

“You two ready for a bit of shopping?” Maya asked, her head turning from one small girl to the other.

TO BE CONTINUED


	325. Her Bond of Family

After an hour and a half of walking and shopping their way through the mall, they were finally granted something of a pause in the form of lunch up in the food court. Katy got the twins settled into a couple of highchairs around a table while Maya and Shawn would divide and conquer, assembling their meals from a couple different places before reconvening and sitting to eat.

By the time Maya walked up with her two trays, her father had already arrived with her mother’s lunch and the twins’, which Katy was already feeding them, in the sort of ‘one bite to one and then one to the other’ dance they had all three of them perfected over time.

They weren’t done with the shopping, though by now Maya almost wished that they were. It wasn’t to say that she didn’t like that she got to spend this time with her parents and her sisters, because of course she did. But the longer it went on, it felt like her mother was barely keeping it together. Her baby girl was on the verge of stepping out into the world on her own, and of all the times and places for the fact to really hit home, a Saturday morning at the mall was not what Maya would have preferred.

Her mother had looked on the verge of tears, on and off through this morning, shielding herself from completely crumbling with the help of a smile. By now, Maya didn’t see how any of them could bear for this feels fest to carry on much longer. At least lunch might give them a chance to pull themselves together again, yeah?

“You two go and take your stinky food over there,” Katy waved to her husband and daughter and indicated the other end of the table, her face shrinking in upon itself as she caught a whiff of the plates on the trays Maya had brought over.

“Rude,” Maya frowned with a smirk before turning to her father with the glimmer of conspiracy that stated plainly that _they_ had the best lunch, clearly. “You just wait until we recruit them to the stinky nation,” she turned to her mother, nodding to the twins in their chairs.

“You’ve changed their diapers, you think they’re not already in it?” Shawn joked, turning a chuckle to his little daughters, both of them getting that happy look on their faces that could only be summoned by the people they loved.

“Dad, not now,” Maya was the one with the shrinking face now, quickly chasing the phantom memory of that smell while she still had an appetite to cling to. “You know, we can call it a day and come back another time for the rest. I’m working late tonight, I wouldn’t mind the down time at home until my shift starts.” It was only a half-truth, she would say. She could have gone straight from the mall to the diner and not blinked, which always managed to mystify some people, but if it helped to unburden her mother…

“I think that’s a great idea, let’s do that,” her father chimed in with a sigh like he’d almost been waiting on an excuse to put an end to this running around.

“We’re almost done,” Katy insisted. “We could…”

“Almost? Mom, do you know how long we spent in that last store? In that same aisle?”

“Nothing wrong with being thorough,” her mother shrugged, and Maya turned back to look at her father before looking to her mother again.

“Really, I can come back for the rest on my own after school, or we can come back next weekend, or the one after that, I mean I’m not leaving for a while,” Maya reminded her, and she heard a small sort of ‘tsk’ sound from her father like she’d missed a step, and then she looked to her mother and saw that trembling behind her smile. She hadn’t meant to remind her about the whole leaving bit, but now here they were. “We can come back next Saturday, you and me, yeah?” she reached out her hand, folded in a fist to be bumped.

“I guess I’m not against a good bribe,” her mother declared, the tremble of near tears fading away from behind her smile, leaving it as genuinely unmarred as ever. Finally, she put in the bump of her fist to her eldest daughter’s, opening up her hand afterward and closing it over that offered hand, pressing those joined hands together for a moment before letting go.

So, they ate their lunches, with Maya tagging in to continue feeding the twins so that her mother could eat while her food was still hot. They figured what they had left to look into getting on this next shopping trip as they ate, and when they were done, with a mental list pulled together for next week, they gathered up the twins and all their shopping bags and started back on their way to the car so they could head on home.

Right then, Maya decided this needed to be more of a priority to her, in the time she had left until leaving for the trip, before the move to Houston. She had to make more time for her mother, for her father. She’d been trying to spend more time with her sisters, sure, but that had been for herself more than anything, hadn’t it? Her sisters wouldn’t really remember much of this, but she would… and so would her parents. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t known this time would be hard on them, too, but maybe she’d been taking it for granted just a bit, taking _them_ for granted. Well, she would change that. From now on, she would change it all.

TO BE CONTINUED


	326. Her Bond of Time

Maya reached her room, after a teetering descent along the stairs with bags looped over her arm. With a great expulsion of breath, she plopped down on her bed, staring at the ceiling for a few seconds before pulling herself back up into a seated position so she could open her shopping bags and inspect her purchases. The biggest item had been a large backpack. If she played it right, that would carry all she needed to bring on the trip.

Once she finished her inspection, she started putting the various items into the big travel backpack. She picked up the last object, but she didn’t slip it into the bag right away. She sat there, looking at it, smiling.

The joke between her parents always seemed to be that it was impossible for her to walk by the art supply store without going in, even if she wasn’t going to buy anything. This time though, they’d been the ones to lead her in, or at least her father had been. The next thing she knew, she had been handed a pocket-sized sketch book.

“Fill that up for me while you’re out running around Europe, okay?” he’d asked, and she’d smiled at once, nodding as she took the book from him.

However minimal she would be aiming to be in her packing, of course she’d have to have the materials for drawing, maybe painting. She’d been getting more into watercolors lately, she could use those. And she’d have her camera of course. It’d be her smaller one, but it would do the job. And she’d have something to jot down new song lyrics, should the inspiration strike. She was really feeling that motivation in her, just bubbling away.

Maya set the new sketch book inside her new bag, hiding it inside her closet, safe from any curious pups wandering about. She could just hear them now, scratching and making noises at the closed basement door above. It used to be that they left it open, but with the twins now walking around, they couldn’t take any chances.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming,” she breathed, moving up the stairs to open the door and step aside, allowing one, and two, and three dogs to come down and join her before shutting the door again. By the time she made it back down to join them, Queen, Tuck, and Ghost were all laid out on her bed like they owned the place. “Oh, that’s how it’s going to be, huh?” she gave them a look. They all stared back at her, the picture of innocence. “That really isn’t fair, you know,” she squeezed in as best she could, in what space there was left for her.

She lay there for a while, scratching at the dogs, crooning and smiling. She knew they couldn’t come with her to Houston, though in many ways she wasn’t as broken up about it as she could have been. That might have made it sound like she didn’t love her dogs, like she wouldn’t miss them dearly, but that wasn’t it at all.

The way she saw it, there were her parents, who would be dealing with her being gone, who could use all the extra love they could get. And then there were her little sisters. For one, it would have been wrong to take even more away from them than she already had to, and then on the other hand, she liked the idea of Nellie and Gracie growing up, making memories, where those fluffy three were right there for them to remember.

Alright, so maybe it _was_ hurting more than she was letting on, to have to separate herself from one more thing, like she wasn’t having to do it with enough things, enough people already… But she’d get through it, like she’d get through all the rest.

She had been well aware that this separation would not be easy on any of them, and she had been feeling it as much as she’d been seeing it, but for some reason today’s outing at the mall had made her even more aware of it, even more weighed down by it. She hadn’t been the only one caught in this loop of feeling the days ticking away, taking them closer and closer to The Moment, and it only got worse the closer they got to it.

Her mother had been feeling it in particular that day, Maya could just see it in her face the whole time they’d been at the mall, and she hated that she couldn’t make it better. She had to go, that was just the truth of it, and pretending like it wasn’t, that… that wouldn’t help any of them.

“You guys are going to be super nice to them up there, yeah?” she leaned in to look at the dogs’ faces like they were in some kind of team huddle. “No leaving surprises anywhere you see fit, no dragging dirt all over the floor, no loud barking in the middle of the night,” she looked to Queen, Tuck, and Ghost in turn. “Don’t give me those looks,” she squinted at the big eyes turned up to her. “I mean it, I… okay… okay, easy,” she couldn’t help but laugh when Tuck started licking her face. “That’s not fair, dude, come on.” It was no use, he knew he had her beat.

By the time she had to leave for work, Maya could see her mother had pulled back a bit from that edge of emotions, which was some relief. It would be stuck in her head all through her shift if she left the house and her mother still looked upset.

“Want me to bring you back some pie?” she stopped to ask her, perching her chin on her mother’s shoulder. Katy laughed.

“Peach or nothing.”

“Peach pie, you’re on.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	327. Her Bond of Memory

Coming home from late shifts at the diner, Maya knew it would never be long before the exhaustion finally claimed her. She was usually out like a light the moment her head so much as touched the pillow, plopped down with no attention to anything like blankets, sometimes before she even went to the trouble of changing into pyjamas.

That night however, she woke up in the middle of the night, dragging her feet up the stairs and into the kitchen to satisfy her stomach’s request for a snack. For that, she was right there when Nellie woke up, too, crying loud from off in the nursery. Within seconds, Gracie was awake, too, and joining her voice to her twin’s, even as their big sister came scurrying into the room.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright, hey cutie, hey…” Maya hushed, picking Nellie up into her arms. The girl clung to her at once. “Did you have a bad dream, hey, we’re good here, yeah?” Maya rubbed at her back, turning to Gracie and reaching her hand into the crib, grasping that small hand of her sister’s just as their father appeared, barely awake at the door. “It’s okay, I’ve got them, go back to bed,” she told him. “Really, we’re fine.” Shawn tipped his head, his look asking if she was sure. “Go on,” Maya insisted, and finally he dragged his feet back to his room.

Pulling Gracie out while she had Nellie already might have been harder if she hadn’t become used to it. Before long, she had both her sisters cradled in her arms, both of them working off whatever they needed to work off before they could stop crying completely. Maya sat in the bay window, resettling the girls as best she could, humming their favorite lullaby as she did her best to convey calm and security, pressing a kiss to one brown haired head and then the other.

“You’re okay… you’re alright…” she breathed. There was always something so indescribable about getting to sit with the both of them close to her like this, sensing the trust they had in her, the love they had for her. Her baby sisters, growing up every day, it didn’t seem possible that so much time had gone by already, and before long…

She was so caught up in her thoughts of leaving for Houston, it took her a minute to notice when the two of them had finally settled down. They were perfectly awake now and staring up at her, Nellie reaching up her hand and poking at her cheek.

“Hey…” Maya laughed. “You wanna go back to sleep now?” She got up, moving to set them back in their cribs. But she tried to put Gracie back and she let out a noise of protest. So, Maya tried to set Nellie down, only to get the same reaction. “Ladies, ladies, don’t you want to go back to bed?” They just stared at her, four blue eyes turned on her. “Oh, I see how it is, I see. You’re sneaky. You are sneaky ladies… I like it,” she whispered. “Alright then, let’s go.”

Maya carried the girls out of the nursery and to the basement. Going down the stairs with the both of them clinging to her was not the easiest thing, but she pulled it off. Sitting on her bed, she was finally able to set the girls down. They stared up at her still, and she let out a breath. What now?

The easy solution would have been to get into bed, keeping the pair of them huddled close, which was what she planned to do in the end, but before that… well, she had a thought.

Stretching out her arm, the other ready to catch either girl if they moved anywhere close to the edge of the bed, she got hold of her phone, turning on the front facing camera, holding it out ahead of herself, keeping all three of them in the frame.

“So, pretty soon I’m going to be moving off to Houston, and I… I won’t be here with you two every day. You’re both still real small right now, I mean…” Maya looked to her sisters, who were both staring up at her like they were listening to her with the greatest intent, which made her smile. “Because you’re that small, you won’t remember this time when I lived here with you. But I was here. Tonight, you two had bad dreams, and I was there.” She paused, letting out a breath, brushing at Gracie’s hair.

She wasn’t sure what this video was meant to be for, if it was for her sisters or for herself. Right now, that didn’t really matter. She talked to her sisters, her eventually older than they were now sisters, not knowing if or when they would see it. She told them stories of their infancy and the months and months that had followed, into their second year of life and up to now. She talked for well over an hour, until the two little ones went to sleep, there by her side.

“Alright, guess that’s my cue to say goodnight,” Maya chuckled, looking down at the pair of them, curled up on her bed, stuck together. “Love you, my sunny girl, love you, Mouse-Mouse,” she sent kisses to the camera before finally hitting stop. The video saved, and with a sigh she set down her phone, carefully moving the girls until she could curl up alongside them, her arm over them and keeping them close. She looked to them, smiling like she had been freed of some weight on her shoulders, until she fell asleep, too.

TO BE CONTINUED


	328. Her Bond of Home

Maya came home from school the next day still feeling the cheer of a good day in class, with her friends and classmates… When she got home, her parents were both there, teamed up on dinner preparations, while the twins were back in their cribs and napping, and Maya offered to assist in the kitchen as she told them about her day. Good days needed to be shared, regardless of the circumstances, but now, with the thoughts of her impending departure in constant rotation in her head, with all its considerations and emotional beats… good days needed to be shared now more than ever.

“Maya, as much as I appreciate you helping out, if you’re going to keep telling us about school, I’ll need you to put that knife down, you’ve almost chopped off your finger three times already,” her mother gave her a look. Maya considered this for a moment, looking to the carrots she was in the process of cutting.

It might have been that she’d have piped down and focused on the chopping, but in the spirit of this whole spending more time with her parents while she could, she surrendered her duties and went back to talking about her day. By the looks on her parents’ faces, they’d been hoping for this choice as well, for the stories and not in some safeguard of her fingers.

When all her tales had been told, she retreated to her room for a prompt homework session. By the time this was done, she returned upstairs to discover dinner was just about ready. She retrieved the twins from the nursery, getting them settled in for the meal. This right here, the five of them around the table, the dogs underfoot and keeping a keen eye for any scraps accidentally dropped… and ‘accidentally’ dropped… This was one more of those things she would do her best not to remind herself how much she would miss.

She settled in to clean the dishes and the table, after the meal was over and her parents had taken the twins away. As her father returned, he came to join her, shoulder to shoulder at the sink, and she smiled to herself. He had to know, whether she said it in so many words or not, just how much he had come to mean to her over the years he’d been in her life. He represented so much of the things she had never thought to be possible, and sometimes… sometimes she still had to pinch herself, reminding herself it was real.

“Hey, you know, from what I’ve seen of it, Houston looks like it’s got some photo opportunity potential,” she spoke up, turning to look at him.

“Does it?” he asked, borrowing her intonation.

“It does,” she smirked. “You might even go on assignment there to take some pictures,” she gave him a pointed look and he chuckled at the call back to his old excuse for visiting her mother and her, before he’d made the move over.

“You know, I probably will,” he agreed, and she beamed. “You guys going to have a guest room in that house of yours or am I going to be riding the couch?”

“Will let you know as soon as there’s an actual house,” she let out a breath. It was inevitable, she still thought about that house they’d visited, like her mind had decided that this and nothing else could ever possibly be Their Houston House. “Dad… After I go to Houston, Mom, she’s…”

“She’ll be alright,” Shawn promised her.

“Will she though?” Maya stared at him. “You know I’m not suggesting it won’t be hard on you…”

“Good, because it will be,” he assured her, tossing her a smile that made her smile back. “But it won’t be the same for her, I know,” he went on.

“I don’t know how she’ll react. You’ve seen her when I leave for like a week, imagine when I won’t be coming back, at least not… not for more than a couple days or something.” He didn’t say anything, didn’t have to. Like he’d said, it _would_ be hard on him, too, and when she’d set the picture like she had just done, he’d looked for a moment like he had to take a deep breath. “Just, however it goes, you’ll…”

“I’ve got her,” he looked at her, and she took a deep breath of her own.

When the dishes were dealt with, and all traces of dinner as well, they reconvened in the living room, joined by Katy, for a bit of television watching, just them and the dogs. As was often to be the case, Queen was sitting peacefully on the ground, curled up. Ghost sat on the ground, too, though up at attention in his case. Tuck had hopped up to sit huddled close to Maya, who’d absently give him scratches as they watched the screen.

“Alright, well I need to go back and finish some reading for class,” she stood from the couch two hours later, stretching for a moment before making for the basement.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs and turned into her room proper, she caught sight of something sitting on her bed and frowned. A gift bag? She looked around, as though whoever had left it there would still be prowling around, when she knew it would have had to be either her mother or father. Probably her mother, while she and her father had been cleaning in the kitchen. She still didn’t know what it was about. Not her birthday, not Christmas, and graduation was still too far off.

“Maya, what are you doing, it’s a present,” she told herself, chasing off surprise and focusing on curiosity and giddiness as she picked up the bag – it didn’t weigh very much at all – and looked to see what was inside.

TO BE CONTINUED


	329. Her Bond of Promise

Up in the living room of the small house, Katy Hart and Shawn Hunter remained where they had been, sat on the couch, with her leaning to him, as they waited for their daughter’s inevitable return. It filled the air with as much anticipation as it did relief, after having waited all day, all night with her sitting next to them and that present down in her room. She had been right, her mother _had_ snuck it down there while they had been cleaning the dishes, and since then all they could do was this… wait… and wait, and…

“Here she comes,” Katy smirked as they heard the telltale sound of someone climbing at double speed up the basement steps.

“No kidding,” Shawn took a breath, pressing a kiss atop his wife’s head just as the basement door swung open and, within seconds, there stood Maya, looking at the pair of them with wide eyes that looked just on the edge of spilling tears, and a smile wrestling itself out from beneath surprise.

“Hey, I thought you were reading,” Katy asked, innocence losing out to a grin of her own.

“Oh, I read, I read…” Maya looked down to her hands. In one, she held the card that had been sitting just inside the bag, blank save for the note inside. _Got these for the twins, what do you think?_ In her other hand, she had a pair of shirts in Nellie and Gracie’s size, proclaiming them to be big sisters.

“Bit early, but it should still fit them in December,” Shawn declared, with a much better grasp on the casual smile, though just underneath there was so much joy it was a wonder it could be contained.

Maya had no words or need for them. She hurried into her mother’s arms and was promptly hugged tight.

“You have no idea how hard it was not to tell you before,” Katy told her, finally able to shed those happy tears with her daughter as she had done earlier with her husband.

“Tell me now, tell me everything,” Maya insisted as she pulled back, sitting back on her legs, right where she’d stopped when she climbed on to the couch. “How long have you known, what do you know?” she asked, looking from one parent to the other.

“Well, Thursday…” Katy started, only to be interrupted near on mid-word.

“ _Thursday?_ ” Maya repeated. “You’ve known for _four_ days?” She might have felt differently about being kept out of the loop for all this time if she wasn’t just too happy to care too long.

“Can I keep going, please?” Katy asked, though she was still chuckling.

“Yes, sorry, speak,” Maya breathed out.

“So… Thursday… I’d been thinking maybe I could be, and I finally went and got a test on my lunch break. Didn’t actually get to take it at the time, we had an issue at the theater… Anyway, so I held on to it, figured I’d take it when I got home, but then _that_ didn’t happen either. Then, Friday morning, _he_ found the box,” she pointed back to Shawn.

“You went through her purse, huh?” Maya shook her head in mock reprimand.

“Valid reasons only,” Shawn defended himself before ceding the conversation back to Katy.

“So, then I took the test, and we waited together and… it was positive. We were thinking of telling you in some way at the mall on Saturday, but that didn’t pan out, although we did get the shirts,” she pointed to the two ‘big sister’ shirts still in Maya’s hand. “After that, Saturday didn’t happen… or yesterday… This morning I went to the doctor’s, confirmed everything…”

“December,” Maya smiled.

“December,” Shawn confirmed with a smile of his own.

“After that, well, we _had_ to tell you, didn’t we?” Katy finished her story, enthralled by the smile that wouldn’t leave her daughter’s face.

Maya had to sit there for a moment, taking it all in. Another sibling… another child, here in their house by year’s end… by which point she’d be living out in Houston…

She felt her mother take hold of her hand, and looking at her, the look on her face, it showed plainly how she’d seen right through the thoughts that played across her face. Even if she wasn’t in town for a lot of the next several months, everything would be alright.

“Does anybody else know yet?” she asked, pushing aside her concerns.

“No, of course not. We weren’t going to tell anyone before you,” her father gave her a look that made her smile.

“But you are going to tell now, or are you waiting?”

“You want to tell Lucas and Riley, is that it?” her mother guessed.

“I… little bit, yeah,” she had to admit. Alright, so it was more than a little bit, but here she was, sitting with this feeling just wanting to burst from her chest. It demanded to be let out.

“Wait, now, if you’re going to tell Riley, Cory’s going to find out, and if he doesn’t hear it from me, he will _not_ let me live it down,” Shawn pointed out.

“Yeah, he really won’t,” both Katy and Maya spoke over one another. One brief moment of silliness, and Maya had to hug them again.

“So, what’s the plan?” Maya demanded.

“Don’t you have reading to do?” her father asked.

“I can get it done in time, don’t worry. This is more important to me than anything right now.” There was no denying that, and her parents could see it plainly.

“Alright, let’s go,” Shawn motioned, unable to stand until the two of them stood, with how they were all sort of piled up one next to the other and over the other, there on the couch.

There had been some debate of possibly leaving Nellie and Gracie with the neighbor, but then Maya had the shirts in hand and it seemed like the waste of a moment not to put those on the two of them and bring them along. So, they packed into the car once the girls had been changed, and they were off. As they drove, Maya took out her phone and put in a call to Lucas via Skype. His face appeared, his expression shifting rapidly from the easy smile of finding she was calling him to the confusion of finding she appeared to be in a car.

“What’s going on, are you okay?” he asked at once.

“I’m fine, better than fine, I’m fantastic,” she laughed, resettling in her seat, pushing hair behind her ears. “We’re on our way to Riley’s house right now,” she informed him, just as Nellie squealed from her side.

“All of you? Isn’t it a little late for a social call?” he pointed out.

“Hey, would have been earlier except, well, it’s a long story, so here’s the short of it…” she stretched back her arm and turned a bit, so that the camera would take in both herself and Nellie, more importantly Nellie’s shirt. She watched Lucas as he squinted to try and understand what he was made to look at, until he must have seen and read the shirt, because his eyes went wide and then the smiled.

“What? No way! That’s awesome,” he declared.

“I know, right?” Maya’s cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling and she sort of didn’t care.

The call ended soon after with the promise of much more in the morning. They were arriving at the Matthews house. Shawn and Katy got out of the car first, as Maya undid the twins’ belts, the better to hand each of them to a parent at each side before climbing out, too and moving ahead to ring the doorbell.

By some chance, Riley was the one to come and answer the door. She looked absolutely lost as to what they were all doing here at this time. Like Lucas, she was briefly going on the side of ‘something must be wrong with someone.’ Her parents weren’t far behind, them and Auggie, too.

“Here,” Shawn just smiled, handing Gracie over to his best friend. Cory took her on reflex, balancing her in his arms before looking at him again.

“Shawn, what is it?” he asked. As he did so, Riley, Topanga, and Auggie all saw the words printed over the small girl’s shirt and they gasped, looking back to Katy, Maya, and Nellie. “What?” Cory asked his family, looking like he was feeling left out of a joke. “What?” he asked.

Auggie was the one to put him out of his misery, pointing to Gracie. Cory looked down at the girl, saw the shirt, looked at Shawn, looked at the shirt, looked at Katy, looked at _Nellie’s_ shirt, looked at Shawn, then finally he gasped, too, and then there it was, the news was out, and the joy of one family because the joy of two.

TO BE CONTINUED


	330. Their Completion of the Year

The last weeks leading to the end of classes felt as though they’d gone by in a flash. It wasn’t too much of a surprise. With everything they all had on their plates, with classes, and projects, and work, and basketball, and families, and the ever-approaching finals, graduation, trip, and move… the days felt as though they started and ended before they had the time to realize it.

So, here they were, in June, with less than a handful of days before their high school classes were officially behind them. Then they’d have their finals, and that’d be all of it. They still couldn’t believe it.

Lucas wouldn’t say that he was hiding from his mother by hanging out at Maya’s house every afternoon, but then he did feel something like relief for that small amount of time where he didn’t have to deal with his mother’s ongoing realization that her baby boy would be leaving home before very long, first on this trip to Europe and, not long after his return at all, off to Houston to stay. He didn’t even have to explain it to Maya. She’d known his mother long enough to have seen this coming.

She wasn’t exactly spared from this sentiment back at her house either, but it had never been a contest to guess which of their mothers would be most prone to some hysterics. Even Maya’s mother, in the throes of early pregnancy and all that it entailed, was nowhere near measuring up to the outbursts out of Melinda Friar. So, they would go to her house, taking refuge in the basement with the dogs, sometimes with the twins, too, and one or more of their friends tagging along.

Those friends, on more than one occasion, had included both Riley and Scott at the same time. In the weeks following the break up, the two of them had really slipped into a place in their relationship that was well at ease with their only being friends and not boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. Maybe that was just what the two of them had ever been meant to be, and if that was the case then they were doing just fine. For both Maya and Lucas, seeing their friends this way had been something of a relief.

These days, Scott being around in these basement hangouts was getting to be a regular thing, which was required by the fact that he had been the boys’ basketball team captain this year, while Maya had been the girls’, and the two of them were thus in charge of planning the end of year party for the teams.

Both teams had ended their first seasons back into active play not only victorious but astoundingly victorious, something that all players – the current ones and all those who’d seen their last one or two seasons get taken away from them – had received with a great amount of pride. It was telling anyone out there paying attention that they should never have been penalized in the way they had, not for the misdeeds of others.

Maya and Scott had been keeping quiet on some details of their plans for the party, the better to deliver some surprises on to their friends and teammates, something which led to a lot of poking and prodding from the others, none of them liking the thought of being kept in the dark.

“You’re just going to have to wait,” Scott told Lucas, Riley, and Zay, while Maya nodded along.

“She made you say that,” Zay accused, pointing to Maya.

“Hey, I’m more scared of her than I am of you,” Scott held up his hands in defense. Zay looked at him, at Maya – who fixed him a look – then back to Scott.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Zay conceded, though he turned to Lucas after this. “Did she tell _you_?”

“I’ve known her long enough not to even try,” Lucas shrugged, and Maya nodded in agreement. He wasn’t even going to tell them how she’d accidentally let one thing slip. He had been guarding that secret like a champ; she was kind of proud… alright, she was very proud, but he really didn’t need to do much to earn that out of her, did he?

“The party’s in a few days, I _think_ you’ll actually make it, Isaiah,” Maya tapped his knee before getting back to her notes.

Before the party, there was one other event to look forward to, though on this one only she and Lucas were feeling any anticipation. He had gone to the ‘trouble,’ on the previous morning’s walk, to properly ask her out on a capital D Date, which was to take place on the following evening. As he’d put it, the next little while would get so crazy, with finals and graduation, that they deserved a quiet evening, just the two of them, fancy dress and all, before they had no time left for it.

On the ‘fancy dress’ front, at least, she was covered, thanks to the fact that she’d somehow found herself in possession of not one but two dresses when they’d had prom. The second dress, the one she hadn’t ended up wearing, had remained in her closet ever since, no real occasion to be worn until now. But for this Date, well… she could see it as plenty reason, although a part of her had wanted to see his reaction if she came to the door in her suit and heels like that day in the gym.

Now more than ever, the end of the year, the end of high school, was all becoming very real, wasn’t it? She’d been counting down the days, marking them off, even as she checked off items from her pre-trip checklist. It felt like she needed more than one countdown, with so many big events approaching, like dominos. But she had decided she could only count down to one thing at a time, and so that was what she would do. First things first, she needed to get through to the end of her class days.

TO BE CONTINUED


	331. Their Completion of Calm

Lucas would have picked her up from her house for their Date, only in the afternoon she had texted to let him know she was being delayed by some errands she had to run for her mother. She was going to meet him at the restaurant. He was all too glad to wait and go to pick her up anyway, but Maya promised it would be easier this way. So, he headed for the restaurant, sitting just outside and waiting for her to arrive.

He’d been sitting out there for nearly twenty minutes when he spotted her out of the corner of his eye, caught the glimmer of something sparkling and turned his head to see her shut the door of her father’s car and wave at him as he drove off. She turned to look toward the restaurant, spotting him at once. The way she smiled, it could have been as much of her just being happy to see him, there in his suit, as it would be her being amused at how awestruck he was at the sight of her.

“New dress?” he asked as she approached.

“Sort of. It was my second option for prom,” she revealed. “It lost then, but now here we are,” she gestured to herself.

“There is nothing about this that’s a loss,” he breathed out, and she felt her cheeks flush.

“Well, I’m glad you like it,” she bowed her head. He offered out his hand and she placed her own in his, the two of them walking toward the restaurant.

Sitting to dinner, him and her all done up for their capital D Date, along with the revelation of the dress and its origins, they ended up reminiscing about their senior prom all through the meal.

It all seemed like an eternity ago now. In the weeks since that day, Riley and Scott had broken up, the teams had won their seasons, and the big countdown to year’s end had kicked into high gear, but back then… back then they were all just thinking about this moment and how much fun it was all going to be.

Lucas had not skipped out on a great prom proposal toward her just because they’d been going out for near on three and a half years, oh no. He’d asked, right in the middle of one of the boys’ team’s games, and really it was a wonder the coach hadn’t kicked him off the team for his theatrics. Maya hadn’t been so concerned about that at the time, too amused, too touched. Of course, she’d said she would go with him, as though there was any doubt.

The two of them teasing each other about any sort of surprise, by now, was another thing that went without saying. They’d never spoil the surprise, not when all the fun was in the poking and prodding. The look of her dress had been of particular interest in this case, and she had milked that curiosity for all it was worth. He would always say he’d think she was the most beautiful girl out there regardless of what she had on, and she knew that was the truth. She also knew that there would be those times where she’d have the power to knock the breath from him, and that… that was pretty good, too.

Going by how he’d reacted to dress number 2, as revealed tonight, she knew she’d had it right to think both dresses would have been perfect, though she was still satisfied with the choice she’d made for the prom itself.

The group of them descending upon school that night, they’d been a sight to see, and they had the photos to prove it, so many photos on so many phones… Maya had done them one better, taking one of their group photos and doing a portrait of it, one for each of them, the styles different and fitting to each one’s tastes. She would give them out as a sort of graduation present to each of them and she couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces. She still had three of them to finish, with graduation coming closer and closer.

As great as all the clothes and the decorations had been, both Maya and Lucas agreed that the highlight of the evening had been the surprise they’d all been able to make happen for one of their own. All along, Dylan had declared that he would be happy to escort Asher to the prom, saying he didn’t care what people said, that this was his best friend and it wasn’t fair that he couldn’t have his boyfriend there at his side.

The truth was that they all knew – except Asher of course – that Ray was flying down from New York to surprise him. When they’d all been coming together at the Matthews house and Riley had announced to Asher that his date had arrived, he’d just chuckled, waiting for Dylan to walk in… only to be treated to the sight of Ray, stood there in his suit. Any of the boys’ friends who claimed they hadn’t cried was definitely a liar.

Dylan had in fact accompanied Sophie to the prom, both of them to go together as friends. It had been a fantastically wild night, with enough dancing to wear out feet and shoes alike.

It was the opposite of what happened on _this_ night, on Date night. On _this_ night, all Lucas and Maya were after was a peaceful, calm evening, dinner followed by a stroll through a museum… After this night, it felt, nothing would be slow or quiet at all, not until… well, probably not until they were all sitting on the plane that would fly them off over the ocean and toward their European vacation.

“Where’s the weird stuff, do you know?” he asked in a whisper as they walked through the exhibit, and she smiled so bright at the memory.

“I can show you, just no rushing, got it?”

“Very slowly take me to the weird stuff,” he nodded. She laughed, and they walked on.

TO BE CONTINUED


	332. Their Completion of Madness

In those last dwindling days of class, it felt like they were going nonstop, morning to night.

Lucas woke up to the sound of his alarm buzzing away on his phone and very nearly tumbled out of bed to go and get ready. In record time he was headed down the stairs, swiping a couple things for him to eat on the way to Maya’s house. The goal not to remain too long in his mother’s periphery, the better not to trigger her nostalgia and emotions over his impending departure, was met at varying degrees from day to day. This morning he managed to be out the door with little more than a slightly choking hug.

He would eat on the bus, tossing out wrappers on his way down and up the street toward Maya’s house. Every morning now she would be found sitting in wait outside the house, and he would announce his presence with their basketball call. She would stuff whatever book or notebook she’d been hunched over back into her bag and jog down the walk to join him, meeting him with a kiss and a hello – in that order always – and then they would start walking… and reviewing.

They would quiz one another, picking a different subject every morning. It was an easier thing to do on the subjects they shared, and that was half their classes. Then there were those where he had the regular classes and she had advanced placement, in three of their respective classes. Maya had worried that her being ahead of him here might complicate matters, but really, he was simply happy to help, and there was never any doubt that Lucas was and always would be so very proud of her.

Lastly, there were only the two classes specific to the both of them, AP Art History for her, and Metalworking for him. There wasn’t a whole lot for him to review on, though he _would_ tell her the progress on his final project, while on the art history front they could have so many discussions thanks to her own curiosity and his ties to the museum tours and everything he had to know for those.

Once they got to the point where they picked up Riley, the reviewing turned to quizzing, each of them taking a turn to spring a question on the other two. No one would claim that they were keeping scores, but as they got closer to the end of the year maybe the ‘winner’ would find himself or herself rewarded…

As they’d arrive at school, still with some work to do at times, they would sit along their bench, quietly bent over some book or another until the others would arrive, all the while trying very hard not to go into nostalgia mode over the bench as they had done over the steps of their middle school. It wasn’t going so well.

The arrival of the others would shift this short time, before classes were to start, away from schoolwork and into some kind of progress report regarding the trip. The closer they got to their departure, the more it felt real. They had plane tickets now, reservations at a hotel in their first destination city, as it had been agreed that after their flight they would need to have a place to rest, no uncertainty to where to go or if there’d be space for them. Much as they had plans, an itinerary, all of that, they didn’t want to go in with strict steps locked into place. They wanted it to be so that, if they decided to stay in one place longer than planned, or if they found a new place they wanted to visit, anything of the sort, then they could do as they pleased.

Sandwiched between their morning and afternoon classes, lunch felt like the one beat of freedom they allowed themselves, though even this felt like barely enough of a beat to actually count. They’d sit, they’d eat, and they’d either disperse or disappear in a book again.

When classes were over, it was off to home, to the library, or to work, and before they knew it they were crawling into bed for much needed sleep that would take them into another day that was much the same.

It wasn’t bad, not at all. They could see the light at the end of the tunnel now, and every new day starting meant another had ended and they were closer, and closer, and closer.

“Is it possible to catch a cold when it’s… well, June?” Maya asked as they were walking from her house one morning. Lucas looked at her. “I’m fine, I’m not sick, I just keep having this thought when I go to bed like one morning I’ll wake up all stuffed up and woozy and then I’ll mess up all my finals and they won’t let me graduate and then just… dominos of trouble going tac, tac, tac,” she mimed the dominos falling one after the other. He let out a small laugh. “It’s not funny,” she groaned, leaning to his shoulder.

“I know,” he promised, finding her hand and lacing his fingers with hers. “You will survive finals, Maya Penelope Hart,” he intoned, bowing his head to meet the glare she would throw for using her full name even before she’d started raising her face. “You heard me,” he smiled.

“For your sake, no one else better have heard you,” she gave a weakly threatening reply, paired with a nudging sort of kiss to his shoulder as they went on walking. “Alright,” she breathed out. “What are we reviewing today?”

“Dance?” he smirked, making her laugh.

“We might want to wait on that one until we have our partners with us,” she reminded him. They were to present their choreography with Zay and Sophie for their final.

“Alright then, physics it is.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	333. Their Completion of Parties

Lucas walked out of the museum on Saturday afternoon after a morning shift to find Maya sitting on the bench by the door, earphones on and in deep concentration over what looked like her art history notes. He approached her with caution, trying to catch her attention without her jumping and shrieking. When she _did_ look up, he was crouched, about to wave his hand in her periphery.

“Finally,” she sighed, standing up and sticking her notes back in her bag. “Let’s go,” she turned to walk out toward the parking lot.

“Go where?” he asked, following with a confused frown on his face.

“The Shelby house. I’m recruiting you as my assistant for the party, putting those long legs and arms to good use,” she informed him, scooping up his arm to get him to walk faster.

“So, you’re using me?” he gave an amused frown. She stared up at him.

“What if I am?”

“Oh, totally fine by me, lead on, boss,” he shrugged, making her grin.

Truth be told, she did need the backup. The past couple years, Julianne Shelby had taken on Riley – their unofficial team member – as her assistant in the party preparations. Of course, by now Julianne had graduated, and it would have been easy to see Riley carry on her duties with her best friend and her boyfriend as the team captains. But much as they had been doing well as friends since the breakup, Riley had confessed she couldn’t get herself to do this part. So, Maya had told her not to worry. She would find another helper.

“Alright,” Lucas climbed down the ladder after stringing up some lights. They’d been at the house, setting up, for nearly an hour. “For the record, I’m keeping count of the amount of times you’ve stopped working, and I’m going to cash in each one of those with a dance later.”

“Who stopped? No one stopped, I’ve been working… working real hard,” she nodded innocently, though the smirk creeping under that innocence was not helping her make her case. “What else could I have been doing?” she asked, shrugging. He leaned over, his face coming to level with hers.

“Staring,” he whispered, and she mock gasped, complete with a hand to her heart.

“Me?” she whispered back. He nodded, laughing, before kissing her.

“Guys, the others will be here soon,” Scott called from across the yard, and they stood back up, casual as they could.

“On it, yup,” Maya called back to him before turning to Lucas again with a smile. “Wouldn’t want a mutiny brewing like that one year.” He nodded along, recalling.

They were spared a mutiny, the yard was transformed, and the doors were thrown open to welcome the players… The party was on.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I think this year’s going to be the best one of these parties,” Lucas declared, putting his arms around her from behind as they took in the yard, now with the music on and their friends off dancing, and swimming, and eating, and generally having a good time together.

“Our last one,” she nodded, sounding both happy and sad at the same time.

“True,” he could only agree. “So, let’s make sure we make a lot of memories, yeah?”

“Don’t have to worry about that one,” Maya smiled at this. “Even assistants can still be surprised.”

“Hold on… Have you been holding out on me?” he looked down at her with curiosity. She laughed, devolving into a giggle. “What is it?” he asked, “What is it?”

“I thought you said you knew better by now,” she shrugged, just before he scooped her up in his arms and started across the yard. “What are you doing?” she asked, laughing. “Wait, hold on!” she gasped when she saw where he was headed. “Hey, man, we can talk about this…”

“Sure, we can. You’ve got ten seconds…”

“I’ll never break!”

“Five…”

“Remember me well!” she shouted before being dropped with a great splash into the pool. By the time she resurfaced, she could hear laughing, clapping, cheering, as the others looked on. Floating in her clothes, Maya locked eyes with a couple of her teammates, motioning toward Lucas. At once, Keilani and Aimee charged in, catching him up and tossing him into the water to join her. “Well, hello,” Maya smiled at him when his head came out of the water next to her.

Though she did not surrender her secrets, Lucas didn’t have to wait long to discover what Maya and Scott’s surprise was about.

As had been the case in the three years, three parties before this one, Riley had been the only attendee who was allowed in even though she was not part of either team. Beyond her, all those invited belonged to the girls’ team or the boys’ team. So, really, it held to this rule for former players to attend, too, didn’t it?

They couldn’t get them all, most of them off in college and not all of them near enough that they could make the trip, but some of them could, and they did. When they saw them walk into the yard, the players of the year’s team greeted them like they might have done a bunch of rock stars. Those of them who had been on the team at the same time as them, those who were now graduating before long, welcomed them like brothers and sisters.

“See? This is what’s nice about surprises,” Maya told Lucas as they danced. He tried so hard not to smile at the way _she_ smiled, but it was impossible.

“Fair enough,” he agreed. “Even if I’m pretty sure I’ll have to remind you of the same thing the next time you’re the one who’s in for a surprise.”

“I can confirm,” she nodded, laughing.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Lucas smiled. She stretched up on her toes to kiss him, and he held her up there for a moment before their dance resumed, both of them holding on to the other, basking in the moment, leaving no space for any sadness at the thought that this would be their last team party. There was nothing in the Shelby yard but happiness.

TO BE CONTINUED


	334. Their Completion of Pup Funds

Though the school year was not technically over and wouldn’t be for several days either, it had been decided that the experience of the nostalgia fund for the shelters would be brought to completion on this date, the better to leave the graduating class to focus on their finals and everything that would follow. On the last day of class leading up to the official donation of the collected funds, of course, they all made well sure that they collected any last minute offerings from around the school.

It started in the morning, before class, something that was easy enough for them to do, as especially Maya and Lucas and Riley tended to be some of the first to arrive out of anyone. They had split up at once, to catch anyone coming along and ask if they had any ‘home stretch nostalgia’ to pay up on. Later on, with the rest of their friends to join them, they dispersed along the halls before class started, between classes and over lunch, too.

By the end of the day, they had collected the last of their donations, which in itself might have felt like something worthy of a couple more dollars out of any one of them. The whole thing had started as something of a joke, as the nostalgia of their impending graduation was starting to make itself felt, but as they had started on this plan in earnest, and over the months the money had started to accumulate, they realized they were actually lining up to make a difference in something, and that… that was enough to keep them forging ahead.

“We already started talking, some of us,” Scott told them at lunch that day. “The Juniors,” he clarified. “We’ll be in our senior year in the fall, and we want to have our own nostalgia fund going, too. We can dedicate it to another cause. Then, maybe, the year after that the next class will do the same, and the next one after them, and the next, and the next… Every year, our school can help people.”

The revelation of this plan, the idea of its impact, had been the cause of another several dollars going into the pup funds. The idea that they might have started something that would continue to live on after they’d left here… It was all they could want.

They went to the bank, where an account had been opened months ago. At the end of every month, Riley – who’d been in charge of keeping track – would go to deposit the money they’d collected since the last deposit, and today she deposited the home stretch collections, confirming the grand total… and it really earned the name of ‘grand,’ as they took it all in.

As agreed, the money would be divided across more than one shelter, and so cheques were written out. The group would set out across the city, each team entrusted with one cheque to deliver to its intended recipient. Dylan and Zay had both wanted them to get their hands on some of those giant cheques like they saw on television, but eventually they accepted the diminutive, standard size of their cheques. Maya had only to look at Sophie to know that the girl probably could have made the boys’ dream come true, though she didn’t say a word.

Maya, Lucas, Riley, and Nadine headed off with the cheque written out to the shelter which had been their originally sole target. When they arrived, greeted warmly by those who’d come to know them over the last several months, they presented their donation with all the importance it deserved. They were given thanks, after which they had spent some time with the dogs. That might have been their favorite part of the whole thing.

“I know we can’t bring my three down to Houston, and you can’t bring Dash either, but… Is it very crazy of me to want to maybe adopt another dog when we get up there?” Maya asked Lucas as they sat with a pair of dogs they were told had been rescued from a fire.

“Why would it be crazy, I think it’s a great idea,” Lucas promised her, making her smile.

“It’s just that… With the five of us in there, once we’re through with college…”

“Maya, we haven’t even started yet, are you really thinking that far ahead?” he couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Maybe,” she frowned to herself. “Guess I have steps and separations on the brain.”

“Look, after we get there, then… we can make a decision. We can say that… we, you and I, would like to adopt a dog…”

“Or dogs…” she cut in, and he didn’t miss a step.

“Or dogs, and we would like to know… if they’d be willing for us to bring them into our home, making it well known that wherever we go, they go with us.” Maya looked to the dog laid out calmly in her lap, lightly stroking its back, smiling to herself. It wasn’t even anything that needed to be specified anymore, him and her. Whatever they imagined for their futures, the one part they knew was that it would be the two of them together and, thinking about it… it was the opposite of nostalgia, and it was wonderful.

“I like that plan,” she looked back at him.

“I thought you might,” he smiled back. “Now, just how many dogs were you thinking?”

“Relax, I’m not going to amount an army of dogs out there… It might just be two, I just like the idea of a couple of pups not being on their own.”

After they left the shelter, the groups were to reunite at the diner, to share the stories of their respective donations. For all their talk of waiting until they got to Houston to lay out their request, next thing they knew it was being put out there, as Riley had overheard them in part, back at the shelter. She had been all for it, just as Dylan was, and Sophie, too. Maybe it was a good thing that they’d already decided. They sort of liked the idea that somewhere out there, a couple of pups might already exist, not knowing they were already thought of with great love and anticipation.

TO BE CONTINUED


	335. Their Completion of Walking

On the last morning of class, which hardly felt as though much actual class time would be involved, Maya was up and out of the house at what might have been her earliest time ever. It was all for a good cause, of course. If she intended to pull off her surprise, she needed to get out there before her Huckleberry boyfriend had any chance to leave _his_ house…

As was to be expected, Lucas had gotten up that morning, feeling much the same way she did, knowing what today would be. Yes, they still had finals, but those would be on their own time, and that meant that this morning would be the last where they could say that they had walked off on their way to school together. And those walks, simple as they might have seemed, had meant so much to them.

He still remembered when it had started, _how_ it had started. It had started out being that they were working on the haunted house for Auggie’s school together, and on those walks they would discuss plans together. But then, when Halloween would be over, there would be no more need for them to do it anymore, would there? Sure, they were friends, best friends, but did he really need to go out of his way and come get her, walk with her to go pick up her other best friend, and go to school from there, every day? No, not specifically.

He remembered just as well how, the closer they would get to Halloween and the day of the haunted house, in effect the end of their time as planners, all he could think about was how he didn’t want it to end, how he just wanted to keep walking with her, every morning. And then on the day after Halloween, November 1st, when he’d gone to get her again… that was the day everything had changed for them, the day they’d become something more than friends.

Their walks had turned to drives for a while, and then… then there’d been that whole time where he couldn’t go and get her because her parents didn’t want him around, but now here they were… It was hard to believe all that mess had ended almost a year ago already, but since then, and all through their senior year, they’d been walking again, until today… the last one.

When he heard the doorbell chime, there was all of a split second where he wondered who was showing up at the house at this hour, and in the next split second he just smiled because he knew. She _would_ do that…

“I got it,” he told his mother as he came down the stairs. She stopped her stride, looking at him for a moment before grasping the answer, too. At this, she just smiled at him and turned back toward the kitchen with a nod. She was surprisingly calm this morning, for it being his last day of class.

When he opened the door, there stood Maya, grin on high wattage.

“So, I was going to bed last night, and I was thinking about how today’s… you know…” she gestured, and he nodded. “And I got to thinking… we need to do something about it,” she intoned, taking him into her pondering of the night before. He could only chuckle. “So, today… _I_ am picking _you_ up, and that is that.”

“Well… There’s no arguing with that, is there?” he stepped aside to let her in.

“Nope,” she confirmed, walking by him until he caught her hand on the fly and she turned back to him to kiss him hello. “Knew I was forgetting something,” she breathed as he swiftly shut the door with his foot and kept her near.

“Soon, we get to start our mornings together, no chance to forget,” he whispered, making her grin once again as she nodded. “I like the sound of that.”

“That makes two of us,” she assured him. “Now, have you eaten yet?”

“Not yet, no.”

His breakfast was eaten on the go, as they took off from his house, making their way toward Riley’s house. They had made these trips, morning or not, enough times to know how much or how little they could take their time as they went.

The fact that it was their last morning walk to class here was not ignored as they talked on their way. They reminisced about those early walks, back when they still hadn’t taken that leap, and then of course that one day of November 1st, three and a half years before. And as it was just drawing closer and closer by the day, they considered what the future held for them, when they’d be off in college, in Houston.

“We can still walk to class together… when the schedule’s right,” he pointed out.

“You’ll get to save on that pesky picking up part, we’ll all be at the house,” she tapped his arm with a smile.

“I don’t know, I liked that part,” he shrugged. “But I’m glad you returned the favor this time,” he added before she could ask if he wished she’d let him come and get her as they usually did.

The last stretch taking them to Riley’s house was spent in silence, just the two of them walking hand in hand, enjoying this last walk to class in Austin before their third party joined the mix and the conversation veered into school and what that final day of classes might have in store for them.

TO BE CONTINUED


	336. Their Completion of Classes

As had been expected, their last day of classes contained very little in the way of… well, classes. Those of them that involved a final project, like metalwork, or dance, more than a written test, were about as lax as could be imagined. Even those who _did_ involve a written test in the days to come didn’t particularly take up much time from their given instructors. In those cases, they would be told to use this time to review for said final. Whether or not they were encouraged to use this time to ask questions, too, was better left to interpretation. Those few who, on the other hand, seemed determined to squeeze as much knowledge out of their allotted time as possible, didn’t get much appreciation from their students.

Everyone was feeling time slide by them like one endless snail that barely moved at all. Every class they got through felt like a chance to breathe, to say ‘okay, one more down,’ even if there were more to follow. Progress was progress.

It seemed almost too fitting that their very last class, on their very last day, in their very final year of high school, should be none other than World History with one Cory Matthews.

“Matthews, Matthews, Matthews…” Maya walked into the room, finding the man almost bracing himself all of a sudden, staring back at her.

“What is it, Maya?” he asked.

“I’m just trying to make sure of something. See, you were my teacher in New York, and then you were my teacher here, in middle school, and then… then in high school, too. I’m wondering if I should expect to turn a corner and find you in Houston this fall,” she smirked, and after a moment he chuckled.

“Don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind,” he admitted. “But I’ll be here.”

“Ready to inflict parental insight on your second born?” she smiled innocently.

“Well, he has it coming,” he shrugged. Maya looked at him, nodding.

“He’s lucky then,” she told her teacher, as honest as she could ever be, and Cory Matthews started his last class of the year with a lightness and a smile about him.

If they had to categorize where _this_ class fell, compared to the others, it might have been said to fall somewhere in the middle. They were still taught something, but in the way he’d have about him, it didn’t feel as though their teacher was trying to cram that knowledge into their heads. It came more naturally, and they wouldn’t have had it any other way.

But then, finally, it came. The last bell, and with it their freedom… mostly. Their genuine freedom would come at the point where they handed in their last final exam, but still this felt like they’d finished lining up the pieces. Now all they had to do was to knock them down.

“You all have your bags?” Sophie asked as the group made its way out of the school, sort of dazed and happy. They nodded in confirmation.

It had been agreed, the day before, that on this night following the end of their classes they would have a sleepover. On this night, none of them were to mention school, or so much as think about finals and studying for said finals. This night was theirs to enjoy, to relax, before they went fully into that home stretch.

Whether or not they would all succeed, now that remained to be seen. There were some among them who might find it difficult to ‘turn off’ for that one night, to not go and start making notes and study plans. This penchant was recognized, even by those in question, and it had been expressed that the others were free, if not downright encouraged, to stop them from cracking and reaching for any schoolbooks. They might regret handing that power over in time, but for now they were committed. They’d made it to this point. No more classes…

At Sophie’s house, the group went ahead and settled in as they had done at their previous sleepover, though the trek to the pool involved less running and shouting. They were just happy to get there and dive in, some swimming around, others staying at the sides, others exiting the water and settling on chairs before long.

“Careful, don’t drown us,” Maya laughed as Lucas swam the two of them along the length of the pool. She had her arms around his neck as he carried her about like a cape.

“We wouldn’t want that,” he agreed.

“Would it be too ambitious to want a house with a pool when we move to Houston?” she asked.

“Maybe. A little. But I’m not ruling out the possibility.”

“Hope. I like the sound of that.” She smiled quietly to herself, thinking of a time when her relation to ‘hope’ was not so free and open.

Somehow, they had all united and split again in teams in order to play what was likely some very lax-on-the-rules game with the ball they’d previously left floating on the waves they created in the water. It kept them paddling along for the remainder of the time leading up to dinner, where they left Sophie’s house to reconvene at Chubbie’s.

It was only as they all sat there that Sophie revealed the surprise she’d been holding on to, they learned, for the better part of a week.

“You, kept a secret for that long?” Nadine asked, only half teasing. “I’m questioning everything I know about you, Zvolensky.”

“What is it?” Riley asked their friend as the girl smiled.

“Well, you know when we went to Houston for the Basket Cases’ competition, and we visited that one house…” Sophie started. The mention of the house, the one they would have leased in a heartbeat if they could have at the time, left the four of Sophie’s future roommates experiencing a similar sigh.

“We remember,” Lucas confirmed. “What about it?”

“The agent out there is friends with my mother, and apparently they talked, and my mother found out we’d visited a place back then.”

“How did that go?” Maya asked, knowing how both Sophie’s choice of career and location hadn’t exactly been sitting well with her mother. “Because if she’s trying to get you to move out of home faster, you just come right to my house and that’s a done deal, okay?”

“Nothing like that,” Sophie promised, a smile on her face showing how she was both touched and still the tiniest bit starstruck that _she_ would do that, even after all this time of their being friends, classmates, teammates… soon to be roommates… “No, she actually told me that they’d worked it all out between themselves, and the house is ours,” Sophie shrugged innocently, in full contrast of the shocked silence that fell over the table and its occupants, all of whom were now staring back at her.

“Say that again?” Maya asked. Sophie looked at her, at the others.

“We can move in whenever we’re ready,” she carried on instead of backtracking. “My mother says we should start looking into what we want to bring out there, then it can be moved out to the house while we’re off on our trip. Personally, I think I’d rather wait until we’re back, my mother might just go ahead and decorate everything if I let…”

The shock had finally worn off, and she was cut off as the others all started to talk at once, slowly taking in this revelation and what it would mean for them. Just like that, Sophie, Dylan, Riley, Lucas, and Maya all had a home waiting for them out in Houston. And not just a home but the home they’d wanted to be their home.

Riley very nearly jumped on Sophie to hug her, while Dylan looked ready to join in. Meanwhile, Maya turned to look at Lucas, the both of them still mostly in awe.

“So, no pool then?” he finally shrugged at her. She laughed.

“That’s okay,” she promised. “We’ll find another way.” They had a home… _They had a home…_

They had a room. It would be both his and hers. Thinking about it almost felt more real now that they had an actual place they could see in their mind’s eye as the location for this shared space that would be theirs. No one had gone and picked rooms while they were there, but Maya knew which one had to be theirs, and Lucas did, too. And in both their heads an image started to fill in.

It was a good thing they’d have the evening to let the news sink in, before they had to make themselves focus again for their upcoming finals. If nothing else, the complete surprise of Sophie’s revelation had ensured one bonus thing: none of them so much as thought of their schoolbooks all night.

TO BE CONTINUED


	337. Their Tests of Clarity

After clearing the proverbial hangover of their sleepover, Maya and Lucas and the rest of them started in Operation Finals, turning Sophie’s house in review central. Small groups would form, and break, and remix, as one subject and another was attended to. For the time being, having the rest of them around felt like the thing to do, to get them to buckle down and get working, though there were some of them who would prefer to strike out on their own before long, too.

Lucas sort of admired that Dylan was showing himself so dedicated to these tests, even though they were essentially the last bit of schooling he intended to get, for now if not forever. Somehow there had been this thought that, since he wasn’t going to college, he wouldn’t apply himself so much as they finished out here in high school. But then the more they’d think about it, about him as they knew him, it wasn’t so striking that he should finish out strong here.

“I found a job in Houston,” he told Lucas, Maya, Riley, and Rebecca, as they were all taking a break from reviewing for French.

“You did? That’s amazing, where?” Riley asked, smiling. He smiled back with a nod.

“I get to coach some kids at basketball at a community center,” he revealed. “I’m also waiting to hear about a thing with this catering service.”

“That’s perfect,” Maya tapped his arm. Everyone had assumed, before he told them he wouldn’t go to college, that he’d be the one of them to keep on playing beyond high school. Maya couldn’t help but think about when he’d been injured, back in the 8th grade, how devastated he’d been at the possibility he might not get to keep playing… So, he wouldn’t keep playing in college. That was fine. Sharing his love for the game and his skills, passing it on to some kids… That was definitely like him.

“Maybe I can bring some leftovers home,” he grinned, looking to his future roommates.

“Yes, that, do that,” Riley nodded, and the others laughed.

Save for this one grouping, Maya and Sophie would be a constant from group to group, as their language classes were the only place where their course load had differed, with Sophie taking Spanish while Maya had French.

Here again, the presence of basketball in their lives seemed to work its influence. As the two of them sat along with Asher and Rebecca, going over their AP Art History material, Maya would look at the redhead at her side and see how much she seemed to carry this new confidence about her, compared to the girl they’d met nearly two years ago. It might not all bear credit to her joining the team, but Maya knew from having stood side by side with her in all this time that it had absolutely played a significant role.

She still had those qualities about her that would always make Sophie be Sophie. She had that whole unassuming sweetness about her, mixed with vibrant giddiness, and then there’d be that secret fire, that drive, the kind that had enabled Lucas’ travels to Philadelphia the previous summer in order to reach Maya and help set the record straight and end the ‘ban’ on his being near her. Whatever her mother might have seen for her future, even if it didn’t look exactly the way she had imagined it, Miss Zvolensky’s daughter was everything she had wanted her to be. She was a fighter.

Lucas would look to Maya from time to time, and he knew that already she was trying to prepare herself for the separation that was coming up. It wouldn’t happen yet, no. They still had the end of everything here with high school, and the trip, but after that it _would_ happen. Some of them would go to New York, some to Boston, and then there’d be the five of them on their way to Houston.

Him and the other three, they were the ones she’d have left, and it made that she interacted with them differently than she did with the ones who’d be leaving. Those of them headed to Houston, they would form a household, their own little family, and that was a whole other dynamic than with the ones who’d be far away. They would be relegated to the same level as Farkle and Smackle. They were far, and they didn’t get to talk as much, but she never made them feel anything less than part of the group, and that went for him, too.

There was a part of him that had possibly entertained the idea of getting to live in the same city as his almost brother, before they’d made their choice on Houston. He’d told as much to Maya, once he was sure she wouldn’t misinterpret this as his saying he had wanted her to make a different choice for her school and their destination, and she understood it well enough. A part of her had hoped to be reunited with her faraway friends, too.

After spending most of the day reviewing, they finally called an end to this gathering and they started off for home. Lucas drove a few of them home, the last of them of course being Maya, giving them a few minutes of peace just the two of them as they made for her house.

“You’re studying again tonight?” he guessed, and she nodded. “If you ever need a buddy or a distraction…”

“You’ll be the first one I call,” she promised, beaming. They parted with a kiss and a shared sigh that seemed to say ‘here we go, back at it’ as she walked on toward her house and he drove off on his way back to his own.

TO BE CONTINUED


	338. Their Tests of Concentration

Before she could get back at her studies for the evening, really focusing on the task at hand, she could at the very least grant herself one freedom, which really went without saying. It was nearly dinner time, so she would sit and eat with her family. What little time she had to spare before the food reached the table she spent with her sisters.

They were both wearing their ‘big sister’ shirts, and it made Maya smirk. The new baby – only one this time, they were fairly sure – wouldn’t be here until the end of the year, but the anticipation was already there, and it meant a lot of potential changes, more than the obvious. For one thing, they had to figure out the matter of space.

There was plenty of it in the nursery to add another crib, sure. It was a rising debate whether they’d need to get a third one or if the girls would be ready to transition to a bed by the time their new sibling came along. Even so, sooner or later the baby would be here, the girls would be growing, and how long could they realistically share the room? What happened when they had to relocate one or two of them? They couldn’t well move a baby or a couple of toddlers down to the basement just because Maya was off in Houston. But then there were no other rooms for them to go to, were there?

They might have to move. They might have to sell the little house.

Honestly, Maya had been trying not to think about that. The house had always meant so much to her, and even if she wouldn’t be living in it anymore, it could still be there when she came back to visit… To think that it wouldn’t be her family’s home anymore, no. She wouldn’t go there. She needed to concentrate on her finals.

“Want me to quiz you?” her father asked as they sat around the table now. He was looking after Gracie while she ate, as Katy looked after Nellie. Maya looked up at him, blinking like she’d been lost in her thoughts somewhere.

“What?” she asked.

“I said do you want me to quiz you, with your studying,” he explained.

“Oh… Sure, I guess, but not now, not yet,” she replied. “Thanks,” she added with a smile.

When she finally went down to the basement to get started, she had one text or more from just about all of her friends, either with a question, or an answer to a previously unanswered question back at Sophie’s, or with some variation on the theme of ‘can these tests be done already?’ Lucas had written just one thing, and she knew what it would be before even looking at it. _366._ In this case, she knew, it meant ‘you’ve got this’ as much as it meant ‘I love you.’

So, she got started. This was going to be the great payoff to the years she’d spent going from a girl with a complicated and poor relationship to school in general, into one who had worked, and worked, applied herself until she excelled at advanced material, who felt an appreciation for her education she would never have believed possible before. She was going to organize everything she had, figure out some kind of schedule, ensuring that by the time she sat down to each of her tests she would be as ready as she could ever be… She was going to finish high school and be proud for what she’d accomplished.

Once she was ready to start with the first item on her list, she was locked in. She had told her parents not to come down or in any way interrupt her unless someone was sick or hurt or the house was on fire. She put her phone on silent, turned on some music, and she got to work.

By the time she officially stopped for the night, she ventured everyone upstairs had to be asleep. Moving from her chair to her bed, she plopped down on to her back, expelling a breath as she stared at the ceiling. She was progressing well enough, keeping up with her schedule, and that just about made the heaviness in her head feel worth it.

When a few minutes’ rest had let her start to feel the release from ‘study mode,’ she picked up her phone and looked to see how her inbox had fared in her ‘absence.’ More messages, which she answered, one by one, even as she made her way upstairs to get a snack.

She sat at the kitchen table with her bowl of cereal, biting back a laugh at the messages she’d received from some of the others. Lucas, for his part, asked if she wanted to meet up in the morning to study, just him and her, and she told him she absolutely did, but only if they stopped for breakfast at Ma Maggie’s first. It was a deal.

She stopped in to check on her sisters before returning to her room. Nellie was sound asleep, while Gracie was quietly awake, staring at the shapes on the ceiling.

“Hey, Mouse-Mouse,” Maya smiled as she whispered. The little one looked up at her, reaching out her hand to her. Maya reached in and took it, leaning to kiss those fingers. “Why aren’t you sleeping? Were you waiting for me?” she asked, stealing a glance toward Nellie, who could well have woken up by now, before reaching to pick up Gracie, carrying her to the bay window. Maya sat there with her, holding her little sister until she fell asleep. Even after that, she stayed with her a while, taking comfort and peace from having her close.

She knew she had no say on the matter. But she looked around the room, the one that had once been hers and now belonged to the twins. How could it ever be anyone’s but theirs?

TO BE CONTINUED


	339. Their Tests of Distraction

Lucas came home after dropping off Maya, remembering at once why he preferred to study elsewhere. His mother had been at the top of that list for weeks already, with how she’d been dealing with his impending departure, but as time had gone on his grandfather had started to catch up to her, and somehow, in the last few days, even his father had gotten caught up in this mindset.

What it translated into, at one time or another, was that they would poke their heads in to his room for a chat, or they would call him down for some thing or another, even though they probably didn’t need him at all, or they would look so weirdly affected by his comings and goings that he would feel compelled to stay with them a little longer.

He understood where that all came from, he did, and, on the whole, he was touched. But now, with finals looming, it all felt like it would get to be too much, like sooner or later he would lose his patience and say something he would come to regret.

He arrived now, just as dinner was about to start, and he knew he had to stay minded, to get out of there and up to his room when he needed to do it and not get swept up into staying with one or another of them. They would say they would let him go ahead and study, that they knew it was important, but then they couldn’t help themselves… It made it hard to be too frustrated with them.

Seeing as he hadn’t been home since the previous morning, the three of them all wanted to hear about his last day in class, how it had gone, how he was feeling about finals, if he’d had fun with his friends at Sophie’s… Lucas answered as best he could while trying to keep brief and to the point, not letting the conversation deviate, because that was how they kept you from leaving.

He was finally able to remove himself off to his room after dessert, and he genuinely debated whether or not to lock his door, possibly just taking his things and heading off to the library… or to Maya’s… No, she probably needed at least tonight to study on her own, no distractions, and on that front maybe he was a _little_ glad to consider himself one such distraction. Of course, if she asked him to come over, he wouldn’t say no. He contented himself in at least sending her one message. _366._ She would understand.

With a sigh, he just went ahead and settled at his desk to get started. He considered himself as having a solid work ethic, and if he really minded himself now, he could get done what needed to be done tonight.

On the whole, he could say he got enough done for that day. Maybe he didn’t get as much done as he would have liked, but it wasn’t so bad as to say he hadn’t done enough.

There had been some interruptions though, two of them. He would think that, if his grandfather didn’t struggle with the stairs still, he might have gotten a third interruption, but he didn’t. First, there’d been his father, then his mother.

When his father had come along, it had been at first less of an interruption and more of a focus breaker. Lucas heard the telltale creak of the flooring in the hall outside his door, like someone walking by… pausing… staying… watching. When a couple of minutes had gone by, with that sound following the occasional redistribution of weight from one foot to the other, he had to sigh, set his pen down, and turn around.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to…” his father excused himself, holding up his hand with that small smile that said ‘well, you got me.’

“What is it?” Lucas asked.

“Just… just wanted to see how you were doing, son. It’s alright, don’t mind me.” Lucas looked at him, his eyes flickering briefly to his father’s feet, which let him know he might not have had the option of ‘not minding him.’ “Right, okay, I’ll be downstairs.”

After he’d gone, Lucas knew in all likelihood he had gotten the message and he wouldn’t come up again for some light spying. Even though he’d gone, it had taken a couple minutes for Lucas to get back on track. His father… Their relationship had changed a lot, in the last six years, since his suspension, since… well, since Maya had come along. He felt confident in admitting how her coming into his life had been the catalyst to so much change in him. As for his father… Maybe he was realizing how much they’d both grown, too.

Then there had been his mother’s interruption, and it would have been a surprise to no one to hear that she’d been a lot less covert than her husband. No, she had come right into the room, up to her son’s desk, peering over his shoulder to see what he was working on.

“Oh, I used to hate that class,” she frowned to herself. Lucas shut his eyes for a moment. “How are you doing?” she asked, pressing at his shoulder. “Any of it giving you trouble?” she asked.

“No, it’s fine. Really, Mom, I’m good,” he assured her, his tone never betraying any frustration in his head. “Just trying to get it done,” he gestured.

“Right… No, yes, of course. Keep working,” she gave him that smile, that ‘I’m so proud of you, my boy’ smile. He had to smile back at that.

When he was finally done for the night, it felt like he’d been spinning for a while and he was finally spinning in the other side, untwisting. At once, he picked up his phone, texting to ask Maya if she wanted to study together the next morning. He’d tried it here, he needed another option.

_“Breakfast at Ma Maggie’s first?”_

TO BE CONTINUED


	340. Their Tests of Solidarity

He picked her up the next morning, driving them off to Ma Maggie’s, both of them with their backpacks loaded with laptops, books and notebooks, and any number of pens, markers, anything they might require. She had texted him even as he was waking up, and he had joked how she somehow seemed to know. She’d joked right back, suggesting he hadn’t found the spy cam yet.

“We’re going to have to find Houston’s answer to this place,” she declared with a sigh as they took their seats in their booth. They looked around, the sunny décor for the summer, the familiar faces of the servers they all knew by name… Even before he could say it, she’d come to the same conclusion: there could be no such thing as a place like this one. It was the only one, and that in itself would have compelled them to add a dollar or two to the pup fund if it was still going, even if this wasn’t specifically about school.

“We can just get our guys a new toy or something,” Lucas suggested, reading the thought off her face. She beamed now, loving the idea. Their dogs absolutely deserved a little treat.

“Where do you want to go after this? Library? My house?” she asked. They didn’t even need to look at the menu anymore.

“We… could just stay here,” he pointed out, and she sat up for a moment, looking around. The place did get busy, but not so much that they would be frowned at for sticking around.

“We can have lunch here, later.”

“Dinner…” he added, and she gasped.

“I like the way you think.”

“I’ve been told.” Another laugh from her, and then it was settled.

Breakfast became a hybrid between random quizzing and random conversation. At some point it devolved into looking up paint colors on her laptop, for their room in Houston. They were nowhere near a decision by the time they had to just stop and shift to the thing that had actually brought them here. They had to start studying for their finals.

The first few hours, the ‘morning block,’ turned out to be all in all very productive. Though they were together, sitting across from one another, they did little in the way of acknowledging the other’s presence or disturbing what focus they had worked up. They did have music, one set of earbuds shared between the pair of them, and that was enough of a reminder, that and the blurred sight in their periphery, the familiar scents…

“Lunch?” he asked when he looked up, having felt the slackening of the cord between them that came from her removing her earbud.

“So much lunch,” she confirmed, and they set to move their things aside, so not to run the risk of any spillage.

As they ate, they talked through some of what they had to cover for their first test, which was coming up on the following morning. It would be one of those where she was in advanced placement and he wasn’t, and to hear her talk on, it was easy for him to see why she both deserved to be in that advanced class and appreciated that she got to learn all that she did. It prompted him to look at her and just smile.

“You’re going to be a great teacher,” he told her, and she stared back at him, cheeks turning just a bit pink.

“It won’t be the same, I mean I’m not teaching physics…”

“You probably could,” he insisted, the pink cranking nearer to red. “You’ve got my undivided attention.”

“Might have something to do with you loving me though,” she gave him a good batting of the eyes.

“Oh, that,” he nodded, and she laughed. “I mean it though.”

“Thanks,” she went on smiling, reaching for his hand.

The afternoon hours were devoted to less separated work and more joint efforts, asking each other questions one after the other. Maya promised she wasn’t keeping score.

Before they knew it, they had rolled on to dinner time. They were both starting to look more on the tired side, though the arrival of more food did something in correcting that.

“How much longer do you think we can stay before we have to start thinking about going home?” he asked. She frowned, staring at their books, stacked at the other end of the table. She reached over and started to move them on to the seat next to her, clearing away the table. He watched her, knowing that waiting to see what she would do was simpler than to ask.

He soon discovered what she was up to as, once she’d finished moving their things out of the way, she got up, took a moment to stretch her legs, and moved to his side of the booth, lightly nudging for him to move further down the bench so she could fit at his side. Now he understood what she’d been up to, clearing the space in front of where he now sat.

“Hey there,” she smiled, sidling up to him. “You were so far away,” she gave as her reasoning.

“So sorry about that,” he agreed, sliding his arm around her shoulders so she might lean to him. “You want me to take you home after we eat then?” he guessed, and she nodded. “You got it.”

They ate casually, forks diving from one’s plate to the other’s without warning or ceremony, the only rule to the meal being that they spoke in French alone, to practice for their second final, taking place the following afternoon. When they were done, they packed up their things, paying for the three meals and various drinks they’d consumed throughout the day, and they climbed back into his car. They got to her house, where he followed her in, their studies carrying on for an hour more before he had to bow out and head home. Finals were now just hours away…

TO BE CONTINUED


	341. Their Tests of Nerves

It was a different sort of walk they took together that morning, him and her. They were headed to school, sure, but as on previous years, heading into school for final exams was a whole other beast to heading into school days, and now, heading into those very last exams – the final finals, as Zay had called them – was about as different of a beast as you got. And it might eat them alive, the way they felt about them. All it had taken was for one of them (again, Zay) to inquire what happened to them if they didn’t pass these, and then they were all goners.

Whether they were off to face a puppy or some feral wolf, Lucas showed up at her door nonetheless. At least, he showed up along her street’s sidewalk, because she was already outside her door, not even sitting on the front steps like usual but pacing back and forth along the path, looking at her notes for a few seconds before pressing them against herself to hide their contents and mumbling with her eyes closed. Then she would look at her notes again and either nod or frown, and then she would start again.

“You know I’ve been standing here for over a minute already?” he asked, stopped just at the point where sidewalk and path met, and she startled and turned around toward him.

“Hey,” she blinked, shaking her head before hurrying after her bag and then joining him. “Sorry,” she breathed out with a sheepish grin before stretching up to kiss him. “Gracie got sick in the middle of the night, I didn’t really sleep much.”

“Is she okay?” Lucas asked, at once concerned.

“Yeah, yeah, she’s good,” Maya promised, though he could see under her features just how worried she’d been.

“Are you going to be alright to take the test?”

“Not like I have much of a choice. ‘Sorry, my baby sister was spewing,’ isn’t really up there on the list of excuses. I’ll be fine.”

“Do you want me to help you with any of that?” he asked, indicating the notes she still kept in a tight hold. She looked down at them, hesitating for a moment before handing them over to him. “Where?” he scanned the page, and she pointed. So, for a while as they went, he would ask her questions and she would give him answers. On the whole she did very well, and, whenever she didn’t, they went over the topic at hand until she had it down.

“I knew it fine last night, it’s like the whole Gracie thing just sort of… knocked some things loose.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he insisted.

“What’s next?”

“Un peu de français?” he suggested with a smile, and she laughed.

“Not yet, I need to stay with this one until it’s over,” she indicated her notes.

“Maya, you have it, you’re fine,” Lucas told her. “You can’t overdo it.”

“Right… No, you’re right. What about yours, are you good?”

“I am,” he nodded. “I might think different when I actually see the questions, but right now I’m okay.”

The thing with her sister and the lack of sleep had really rattled her, he could see, and he wasn’t sure how to set her back on track. It was one thing to distract her and set her thinking about something else on any other day, but right now she needed to go into school as level-headed as she could be.

So, he did what he could and he reached for her hand, kept it in his as they walked. Sometimes, just that contact was enough to get her feet squarely on the ground. The closer they got to school, he would look at her and she seemed to be breathing smoother, to carry herself with more ease, and that in itself made _him_ feel better, too.

They would be joined by their friends at the bench before long, where the separation between those in AP and regular physics manifested in a pair of clusters. By the time they headed into the school, Maya only had a moment to toss a silent but wordy smile toward Lucas before they went to their respective tests.

It had been previously agreed that they would all meet back at the bench after their test, before shifting into their last review heading into their afternoon test, French or Spanish in this case.

By the time Lucas came out of his first final, the allotted time had nearly expired, but he’d wanted to be thorough. He made his way out of the school, feeling like he carried one less brick, finding Maya sat there with some of the others, leading Riley in some French verb review.

“Well?” he asked when she looked up.

“Went well, I think,” Maya smiled. As she’d usually put it, she could be under the impression that she’d done really well, and then she’d find out that she’d completely misinterpreted a question and answered wrong, and… well, they’d just have to wait and see.

“Français,” Riley gestured to Maya, who held up a finger to her boyfriend in a silent ‘excuse me’ and resumed her review with her friend.

The French test didn’t worry either of them in the least, didn’t worry the majority of them, definitely not so much as their morning’s test had done, so it was a good thing the day had been stacked in this way. Their other exam days looked a lot like that, which was about the sole relief they had to rely on, just get through morning and the afternoon won’t be so bad. They’d feel infinitely better when the last domino fell, but that wouldn’t be today. For now, the group was set to split again, French this way, Spanish the other way.

TO BE CONTINUED


	342. Their Tests of Endurance

With how much of their lives seemed to revolve around going to and from their bench in the last few days, it seemed as though they were being encouraged to really miss the place more than they already did when they hadn’t even left yet.

On the second day of this three-day venture, following the morning’s pre-calculus final, Maya made her way down to that bench like a warrior walking off the battlefield, having vanquished the beast. It wasn’t to say that her other finals weren’t going to be hard, but this one and AP Physics the day before had without a doubt been the two that she’d been the most concerned about. Now that they were behind her, everything else felt just the tiniest bit more promising.

“Hey,” she heard Lucas’ voice from behind and turned just as he reached her, making them both step back to keep from colliding with one another. “Hey,” he repeated, this time laughing just as she did. “How did it go?”

“The important thing is that it went,” she waved her hand about, as though she was sending pre-calculus out on to the wind.

“So… bad?” he cringed.

“Oh, no, at least I don’t think it did, I’m just really glad it’s over,” she sighed, snaking her arms around his waist, the better to ensure he would lock his arms around _her_ , too. When he did, she hummed, breathed out. Much better. “Can you just come into the room with me for art history? Not like _you_ have anything to do this afternoon,” she frowned in mock jealousy.

“Nothing would make me happier… Well, not true, you not having a test either _would_ make me happier. I could stand at the front of your class though, like I’m modelling for a painting,” he suggested, teetering her along from left to right.

“Yeah, that one, let’s do that,” she laughed, holding on. Neither of them was under the impression that her teacher would allow it, but it was nice to dream. “You’re sticking around until I get out of there, right?” she looked back up to him.

“I’ve got my things to review for tomorrow, I’ve got a bench, it’s all good,” he nodded.

Lucas wasn’t the only one to have the afternoon free. Riley, Nadine, Zay, Dylan and Joey all sat with him, hopping from economics to history and back as they waited on Maya, Asher, Rebecca, and Sophie. Even though they knew it would be some time before any of them got out of there, it wasn’t long that they would start looking up every couple of minutes, in case one of them _did_ emerge.

Asher would be the first one of them to come, which was hardly a surprise. He was notorious among them for being the first to finish the majority of tests, and his grades spoke for themselves.

“One more down?” Dylan reached out his hand to high five his best friend. “How was it?”

“Essay questions,” Asher replied, shaking out his hand with a groan, not for the high five but for the amount of writing he’d just done. “Think Maya was almost done,” he turned to inform Lucas and Riley both. “Looked like she was rereading when I got up.”

“Thanks,” Lucas nodded, while Riley sat up with a smile.

As predicted, Maya came along, just about five minutes after Asher had done, with a similar shake out of the hand. Lucas got up from the bench to offer out his spot before moving to stand behind where she sat.

“One more day,” he told her, leaning forward to kiss her head while she bent and unbent her fingers.

“Two more tests,” she nodded.

He accompanied her home, joking as they went that he was ‘driving’ her home because of ‘that poor hand of yours.’ She was more than happy to ham it up.

He’d gotten to do a fair amount of reviewing with the others sitting outside earlier, but he wouldn’t say no to a bit more with the two of them working together.

“How’s she doing?” he asked Maya’s mother as they arrived to find her sitting on the couch with a sleeping Gracie in her arms. He already knew, through picking Maya up that morning, that Gracie was doing better, but it was the sort of thing he’d been raised to ask anyway.

“Better,” Katy smiled, rubbing her little daughter’s back. “Thanks for asking,” she nodded.

“Hey, kid,” Lucas crouched to greet Nellie, presently sat on the ground near the couch, playing with one of her toys. She looked up at him, squealing in recognition.

“Can you take her down with you?” Katy looked to Maya, indicating the sleeping Gracie.

“Sure,” Maya smiled, even as Lucas picked the girl up from the ground. “Let’s go teach her about economics, yeah?” she whispered, leaning to kiss her sister’s cheek.

“Why would you do that to her?” Lucas teased as they moved toward the basement.

They settled on the ground near Maya’s bed, Nellie being passed from one to the other in time as they set to their review for what would be their last two finals… one more day… one more and they were done, for real this time.

“Feel like taking the couch and just staying here tonight?” she suggested by the time they had reviewed enough that there was no reason to go on. “Then we can take it easy tomorrow. We don’t have to go out for pancakes, we’ll just make our own.”

“Think they’ll be okay with that?” he asked, nodding to upstairs.

“At this point, what could they even say?” she shrugged.

“Alright then,” Lucas agreed. “I mean if it were up to me…”

“I know,” she smiled. “But hey, it won’t be long now, remember?”

“Won’t be long,” he repeated, sharing a smile with her. It wouldn’t be long now, they could fall asleep and wake up together…

TO BE CONTINUED


	343. Their Tests of Release

Lucas had been granted the couch, all in all with much less resistance than either he or Maya had imagine, and so it made that, early the next morning, they joined forces in the kitchen to get a pancake batter mixed up.

“I’m much better at this than I used to be, you know?” she whispered as they worked, both of them mindful of the other occupants of the house presently sleeping away. “It’s all about controlling impulses.”

“What impulses were those?” he wondered.

“Let’s just say I’ve learned to appreciate appropriate quantities of ingredients,” she bit back a laugh.

The pancakes were made, two each. Lucas set about cutting them some fruit to go along, while Maya tended to the pancakes in the pan.

“Get the plate,” she told him, and when he realized what she was planning to do, he looked hesitant. “Plate,” she insisted, and he got the plate, deciding to trust her. He watched as she flipped the pancake and it was airborne… before it landed on the plate. “Ha!” she gave a muted victory call before getting back to work.

“Showoff,” he breathed, and she did a small dance to show that, yes, she was that indeed.

After they’d eaten, they went on their way toward school for their economics final and, after lunch, world history, to close out the finals, the school year, and their high school years as a whole. They tried not to go in looking like this would be a piece of cake, but really by this point they were confident enough that it felt warranted.

By the time they met up to go and have lunch, after their economics final, the anticipation for the year’s end was at a fever pitch. They would joke with Riley, asking her if she might talk her father into just cancelling the final, to which she would assure them she had already tried.

“Alright, kids, this is it,” Maya addressed her friends as they walked toward their very last final. “Deep breath, no rushing, and when this is over… Wait, what do we do when this is over, we need to do something, don’t we?” In all this, they somehow hadn’t stopped to decide on any sort of ‘woo hoo, we’re done!’ activity.

“Is sleep an option, because I’ll pick that one,” Dylan raised his hand.

“Yes, group nap, I like that one,” Zay backed him up.

“Movie night, pizza, how’s that?” Lucas looked to them.

“We can go to my house, you guys can have your nap in the home theater,” Sophie chuckled.

They headed into their world history final then, on the shared curiosity of just what state they’d find their dear teacher in, as he prepared to send his daughter and all her friends off into the world. Would he cry? Would he be all over the place? Would he be all cool and collected?

“Oh, definitely not that one,” Riley assured them.

Mr. Matthews may have wanted to come and be all cool and collected, but that was absolutely not the way he came off, not to anyone with eyes. They could just see him resisting the urge to hug his daughter, or to start crying.

“Keep it together, man,” Maya muttered at him as she passed, and he coughed, trying to do just that.

It was hard not to be a little amused about the whole thing, so they started on their test in a good mood, possibly helping any of them who might have been concerned about how they’d do in this one.

Once it started, they didn’t have to get caught up in thinking about this being their last test, or about their being one ceremony away from having put high school behind them. They didn’t think about their grades or anything else except the questions set before them, and before they knew it they had filled in the last of them, had read back through everything… and then they were handing their tests in, one by one leaving the room for a very well earned cheer… Well, most of them.

“Did you see the look on Mr. Matthews’ face when Ben handed in his paper with that ‘whoop!’?” Asher smirked to Maya as they dropped on to the bench, the first of them to emerge, after their loud classmate.

“Poor guy looked like he’d just been abandoned,” Maya couldn’t help but laugh.

Sitting out here, she was very much in that state where it hadn’t quite sunk in that she was done. She knew it was true, somewhere in her head, but all the same there was still this feeling in her like she was supposed to be doing something, studying, making notes, anything… Somewhere between now and graduation it should hopefully wear off, right? Definitely before they flew off to Europe.

Sophie came out next and, after a quick celebratory hug, she went ahead toward her house to check on a couple of things for their ‘very relaxed party.’ Joey came next, and then Nadine. Lucas came after that, and Maya jogged off to meet him. Now that he was here, she did sort of feel it a bit more.

“Hey,” he smiled, his arm around her shoulders as they started back for the bench and the others.

“Any more shenanigans in there after I left?” she asked, curious.

“No, no ‘shenanigans,’” he shook his head. “Mr. Matthews looked at each of us coming up to his desk like he’d like to see us try.”

“Is it really weird that I almost feel bad enough for him to want to invite him to movie night?”

“Oddly enough, no, not really,” he frowned. “We’re not though, are we?”

“It’s one thing to have him at my house when they visit, or to be at his house when _we’re_ visiting. Anything beyond that is just hanging out with our teacher… although he’s not really that anymore. If we get him a gift, will that do?”

“What it’ll ‘do’ is make him cry, I think,” Lucas pointed out.

“It’s half the fun,” Maya looked up to him with that old mischief twinkling away, mixed up with the genuine affection she felt for the guy, and Lucas could understand why, knowing everything he’d done for her over the years, how much he’d meant to her.

They didn’t have Mr. Matthews over at Sophie’s, but it was a great night nonetheless. For all the talk of naps, they were all in fine form, catching a solid five and a half movies before they called it a night. The pizza tasted like the best pizza they’d ever had, even though it was probably the same as any other time they’d had it.

“The special ingredient is ‘no more finals,’” Dylan revealed in a dramatic whisper.

Lucas was one of a few of them who’d fallen asleep midway through the sixth movie, leading to their dissolution of movie night. He woke up blinking until he saw he had sort of half curled up in his seat, his head in the crook of Maya’s arm for a change.

“Did they win?” he mumbled.

“They’re the good guys, they always win,” she smiled brushing at his hair with her fingers. “Want me to drive you home?”

“Want to stay with you,” he kept on mumbling, half asleep. It was very tempting to just let him fall back asleep, even though she would probably regret it if she had to spend the entire night with his head under her arm like that. It would have been worth it.

“You guys can just stay here tonight, you know?” Sophie told her, having just seen the rest of the group out the door, leaving the two of them stragglers.

“Yeah?” Maya asked, knowing that anything like ‘we wouldn’t want to impose’ would be pointless to say to someone like Sophie Zvolensky, who would host them any day or night if they needed her to.

“You know where the guest rooms are,” Sophie nodded with a smile, moving to pick up the pizza boxes.

“I’ll get Sleeping Beauty settled in and I’ll come back down to help you,” Maya promised, looking down to Lucas. “Hey, get up, come with me,” she instructed. He didn’t need to wake up, he just needed to follow her, and he did. Getting up the stairs was slow going, but finally she barely had to give him a nudge and he plopped down and settled on to the bed in the room they’d entered. Maya helped him under the blankets and kissed the side of his face. “Be right back,” she told him.

She and Sophie finished cleaning up the home theater, and her hostess got her some PJs before they retreated to their respective rooms. After she’d changed, Maya climbed into bed, finding an unshakeable smile on her face as she settled in next to her boyfriend and, after a minute, he turned over and pulled her close. They fell asleep like that, with dreams of a life together, finally about to start.

TO BE CONTINUED


	344. Their Graduation From the Past

The days leading up to their graduation ceremony felt like they’d gone by in the blink of an eye. Now that they didn’t have school to think about anymore, all their energies had turned toward preparing for the trip. Today, as they woke, they knew they were only three days away from heading out to the airport… and it still hadn’t stopped feeling sort of surreal. Three years of planning, and finally it was within their grasp.

Lucas woke up on graduation day feeling… He didn’t know how to describe how he felt. ‘Good’ was in there, sure, but it was more than that. This day, more than any, felt like a border, a transition from who he’d been to who he would become. He wouldn’t know who he would become, not until he actually got far enough to tell. But who he’d been… Who he’d been he knew plenty about, and right now it was all he could think about.

He could hear sounds from out of his room, and he knew very well what they were about. His mother was in the kitchen, making breakfast… a lot of breakfast, knowing how she got on big days. He could almost bet that she had recruited his father and grandfather into the effort by now, too. He reached for his phone to text Maya, asking if she and her family would like to join them in ‘consuming the feast.’

A minute later, as he was climbing down the stairs, she replied. _Sorry, something’s cooking up here._ It was accompanied by a picture, showing her only from the eyes and up, he realized, sitting just below ground level in the steps that led into the basement. Behind her, he could see part of the kitchen in the distance, the table loaded with a few dishes already, and the twins being attended to by a man and woman he couldn’t quite identify.

_No worries, I’ll see you at school._

With no backup from the girlfriend corner, he thought to send a similar invitation on to his best friend. Sometimes he did feel bad, like he was possibly shortchanging Zay, especially now that he was about to move across the country, but then Zay did get it. He and Nadine had been going longer than him and Maya after all, and he would take pleasure in reminding him, every chance he got.

In this case, he had a feeling he would get the same response again. There was no way Zay’s family, legendary as they were for their family gatherings, wouldn’t note his graduation from high school with some of that same enthusiasm. So, rather than to invite him, he texted to ask how it was shaping up on his end.

_General GiGi is bossing everyone around_ , Zay wrote back, sharing a picture of him sitting with his great grandmother for a selfie. The woman was making her way toward her centennial, looking frailer than she once had but in no way weak. The smile on her face, as her great grandson took the picture, was a thing of warmth and beauty.

With no backup to look forward to, he braced himself for Hurricane Melinda. Dash had come down the steps at his heels, and the dog stared up at him when he stopped at ground level.

“You go and distract her if she starts to cry, and I’ll get you all the bacon you want,” he whispered, crouching next to the dog. She looked up at him, head to the side, and Lucas smiled, giving her scratches. “Right, you’re my backup then.” In response, his ‘backup’ trotted off to the kitchen, giving a bark and drawing attention even as Lucas stood back up and moved to follow.

As he’d predicted, his mother had her husband and father-in-law assisting in preparations for this morning’s offerings. She was still delegating, with Dash pulled into her arms, when Lucas walked in. At once, she made a happy sound before pulling him into a hug with her free arm.

“Look at you,” she smiled her brightest smile, her eyes looking this close to spilling tears. Having Dash in her arms, the hug she gave was not nearly as air restricting as it might otherwise have been, and he had to stop himself laughing at the thought. Dash was absolutely earning her extra treats right here. “Now, after you’re done eating, you need to go to shower and dress, I’ve got the camera ready, we’re just going to take a couple shots,” she informed him. He looked to his father, who was giving particular attention to his given task, allowing him to hide a smirk. ‘A couple shots’ was hardly ever anything less than twenty.

“Sure, okay, but this is kind of a lot, isn’t it? Even for… I mean… Thanks,” Lucas gave her a smile, deciding that it would be the better response. No matter how over the top his mother could get from time to time, sometimes he had to remind himself to look past the bells and whistles and remember why she was. She just loved him, loved all of them, and this was her way of showing it.

“Anything for you,” she smiled back, and he leaned to kiss her cheek. “Now go on and sit, I’ve got your plate coming right up.”

“Here, I’ll get her,” he took Dash from her and moved to sit, keeping the dog at his feet. She stared back up at him now, tail wagging, as though to say ‘I did my job, now pay up.’ “Soon,” he promised in a whisper, reaching down to brush at her back. Pulling out his phone again, he took a picture of the three of them there, working away. He could see all of their faces in that image, and in each of them he saw a different version of the same thing. They were doing this for him, and they were glad to do it.

TO BE CONTINUED


	345. Their Graduation From Memories

Maya woke up on graduation day, or rather she was awakened, by a trampling of dog paws and dog kisses. She gasped, only briefly disoriented before breaking into a laugh.

“Okay, okay, I’m awake!” she giggled, reaching out, trying to get hold of whoever was so eagerly greeting her this morning. “Ghost, hey, calm down, come on,” she pet his head as she worked to sit up, a task not so easily accomplished when the other two were also there, covering her up like a living blanket. “This was a lot easier when you guys were tiny…” she breathed, once she’d finally rolled free.

She looked up then, understanding. If there was one thing to get the dogs all over the place like this, it was guests. Turning to look at the time, she breathed a bit, after having thought for a moment that she might have overslept. Who would be here at this hour though? Sure, it was her graduation, but…

She checked her phone. Even if he was trying to surprise her, Lucas still would have written, not saying outright that he was coming but something… There was nothing, so it wasn’t him. Riley? No, her grandparents were in town for today, they were all probably doing something, too. So… who was here?

She was climbing up the stairs when her phone vibrated, and she nearly lost her footing for it. _Now_ Lucas was texting, so maybe he really was here? He wanted her to come over, her and her family. His mother had made enough food for an army again, hadn’t she? Of course. Before she could answer him, Maya continued up until she could open the basement door and look to see what was the situation here.

Catching the sound of voices, she listened for a moment. Her father… her mother… and another man, another woman. She knew those voices, she…

Maya took a quick picture, sending it and an apology for not being able to accept Lucas’ invitation, before climbing up the rest of the way and toward the kitchen.

She hadn’t been able to see them all from where she’d been standing, but she knew they had to be here, if she was.

Abigail… Kermit’s new wife… She sat at the table, with Gracie in her arms, and next to her, previously out of sight… Sam and Cara.

“Maya!” Cara cried out at once when she saw her, and her half-sister sprang from her chair to come and hug her, very nearly knocking her off her feet.

“Hey, kiddo,” Maya laughed, giving as good as she got and feeling just a bit like she was going to cry. “You’re here…” she pulled back to look at the girl’s face.

She continued to look so much like her, and where it might have been a bit destabilizing to see when she was still getting to know her, by now it was nothing short of a wonder, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. And Sam… her half-brother, who had started it all. He was coming toward them now, too, and he didn’t shy away from being pulled into the hug by his sisters.

“Look at you in your suit,” she commented. “And that hair, all sleek. I like it.”

“My head itches,” was Sam’s response, and she laughed. As they pulled back, their mother came up to say hello, too. Maya didn’t have to speak the words ‘thank you for bringing them over for this,’ it was all in her eyes, and the woman understood it well.

She had to wonder, just a bit, how her mother was doing, having her ex’s new wife and children here. It wasn’t as though Abigail, Sam, Cara, and the two little ones who’d been left back in New York were something new to them by now, but then they’d never been here, at the house. Maya was just a bit sad not to have Eliza and Wyatt here, not to have all of her siblings, on either side of the parental divide, in the same place, but this was too good to find any reason to complain.

And then there was their other guest, and to have him here, she knew, would mean a lot to her, but it would mean plenty to her father, too, likely more so. This was less of a surprise, although they had been sure he wouldn’t be able to make it.

“You made it after all,” Maya moved to greet him as he stood.

“Couldn’t miss it,” Jonathan Turner assured her. “Your mom and dad have been telling me all about how good you did.”

“Top of her class,” Katy beamed.

“Well, not _top_ top, but… pretty close,” Maya couldn’t have kept herself from smiling if she’d tried.

For all the work leading up to finals, all the work throughout the year, it still caught her off guard sometimes, realizing and remembering how well she was doing now. When their results had come out a couple days back, she’d very nearly felt her knees give out from under her.

Sitting to breakfast with all of them there, she almost didn’t care that she was significantly underdressed for the situation. When she was finished eating, she could go and get ready. Sam and Cara… They were here… It was her graduation day and she was so happy they were here, she almost cared more about showing them her room than actually attending the ceremony. Well, that might have been pushing it. She actually really couldn’t wait to go up there, walk across that stage knowing that there were all these people here to watch her do it, people who were proud of her, people who loved her… She never would have believed this day would ever mean so much, but it did, and it made her heart do flips inside her chest.

TO BE CONTINUED


	346. Their Graduation From Anticipation

It seemed only right that they would set their meeting point at the bench that had been their designated meeting point for the past four years’ worth of mornings. After their families and other guests would split off toward the auditorium, they would go and meet up at the bench, as had been planned.

Lucas arrived to find the Garcia twins and Rebecca the only ones already waiting. Done up as they were for the ceremony, it was one of those moments when Asher and Joey really looked most like one another, though there was never any doubt who was who. Rebecca had redone her hair color, her multicolored mane looking its most vibrant, twisted in a braid as it was.

“Hey, you guys been here long?” Lucas asked.

“We just got here,” Asher told him. “Joey and I have been debating whether or not to go up for each other’s diploma when they call our names.” Joey didn’t look so sure about it, while Rebecca was trying to show solidarity to her boyfriend even though the smile was right there creeping on to her face. Lucas just laughed, thinking back to some day not long after Joey had transferred schools to join his brother when they had suggested doing this very thing.

When Dylan arrived and they told him about the half-made plan, he had the same reaction. He insisted it’d be funny, though Joey still looked unsure.

“It’s not like they won’t let you graduate for it,” Rebecca pointed out, giving him a smile. If anything was going to make him change his mind, it would be her, and they all knew it.

Zay and Nadine arrived next, making quite the pair, all set for the ceremony. Zay had gotten his hair cut, it seemed sometime between that picture he’d sent earlier that morning and now. He looked so much more grown up all of a sudden, and it was the slightest bit startling.

“I come bearing treats,” he held up a box, opening it to reveal a load of GiGi’s cookies. At once, several hands reached forward. “Easy, hey… Animals,” he squinted. “One at a time,” he instructed.

“Yes, Mr. Babineaux, sir,” Dylan teased. They all took one cookie, under the watchful eye of the future teacher.

Maya and Riley arrived together, having driven in together, though as the others saw, they had then run into Sophie in the parking lot, and now the three girls came to join them at the same time. From the bit of conversation that he caught as they were walking up, he could tell both Riley and Maya had been telling Sophie about Mr. Matthews and his wife and what had happened at _their_ high school graduation. Sophie looked both shocked and enthralled. She _was_ the most hopeless of romantics among them.

The part that got Lucas’ attention the most though was Maya’s telling the other two how her father had been acting nervous like it might happen again here. He couldn’t have meant Riley, so… Did Maya’s father think… Did _she_ think? He must have looked a bit spooked because, when Maya saw him, she paused, looking back to Riley and Sophie for a moment before her face widened in understanding.

“Hey, relax there, Huckleberry, we’re good,” she patted his arm, chuckling and thanking her heels for the boost before she could kiss him. He breathed after that, like he’d been gone for a moment.

“You know I will though, right? Not now, but…” he spoke just quiet enough for her to hear.

“I know,” she smiled brightly. “Like I said, we’re good.” He kissed her again for that. “Guess what. Sam and Cara are here with their mom, and Turner’s here, too.”

“That’s who I saw in the picture,” he understood.

“I’m just so glad they’re here,” she went on smiling. “Also, can I just say, you are wearing that gown very well,” she looked him up and down.

“Right? Nice flow,” he looked, too. She made a face like she wanted to peek underneath and see what he might have been hiding there. “And to top it off…” he put the cap on his head, fussing with it a bit before it sat as he wanted it.

“Now _that’s_ a look,” she giggled. He took the cap from her hand, placing it on her head. “And now we match,” she announced with pride. The light sound of a phone’s camera reminded them the others were there. Sophie had been the one to snap the image and she looked very happy with it.

“A pose this time?” she suggested, and Maya and Lucas faced her, arm in arm and ready for their walk across the stage. After this picture was taken, it wasn’t long that the others wanted to jump in, which turned the next few minutes into a sequence of intermingled picture sessions, with this phone and that phone, this grouping and that one…

“You know we can just send them to each other, right?” Zay pointed out.

“We don’t have one of all of us though,” Nadine added. They sort of did, though not one that didn’t involve someone holding out a phone as far as they could get it.

“I’ll do it.” They turned to find Scott standing there, smiling back at them. The soon to be graduates gathered up for the shot, and Scott took the picture. It would be sent through to each of them after that.

“Thanks,” Riley told him, and he nodded.

“I think we need to get in there or else there won’t be anyone to walk in when they call us,” Maya nodded to where they could see the vice-principal waving others of their classmates through. They said goodbye to Scott for now, walking to take their places.

TO BE CONTINUED


	347. Their Graduation From Silence

They were sorted out alphabetically along with the rest of their class, which mixed most of the ten of them in with the rest. The only ones of them who got to stick side by side to one another were Asher and Joey, and then Nadine and Sophie, Zhu and Zvolensky at the very end of the long line of graduates.

By some chance, by the time they took their seats in the auditorium, their chain reached the end of one row of seats and snaked on to the next one going the other way, which left Lucas near the end of the first row and Maya just behind him in the next row.

“It’s just like class,” he turned to tell her and she nodded with a grin; she’d thought about it, too.

Before they ever made it to those seats, there had been the minutes to wile away outside the auditorium, all of them lined up in wait, which could only ever lead to what it had ended up being, which was a burst of restless loudness. People were talking, shouting out to one friend or another up or down the line, some were singing – not all of them on key – and others tried to move out of their spots to go say something to a friend, which was apparently very much frowned upon by the vice-principal.

“I don’t think he wanted to be in charge of this,” Mara Harris turned to whisper to Maya. She had to bite back real hard on that laugh. The two of them had never been much more than acquaintances, although the similarity of their names had led to some mix ups over the years, binding them in this association that was close enough to a friendship that it could have counted.

“How’s he going to react when Asher and Joey are going to switch places?” Maya whispered back conspiratorially.

“Are they doing that?” Mara asked, intrigued. Maya stretched her neck to look at her two friends, four people ahead of them.

“I think they already did. Hey, Ash!” she called, and he turned to look at her. He was the second in line, which meant… “Yeah, they did.” Mara laughed.

Lucas had turned to look when he’d heard Maya’s voice. He could see the switch had happened, too, much more easily for being able to see the boys’ faces.

“Did they do it?” Rebecca asked him, standing two spots ahead of him, with only Connor Fraser between them. The boy looked back, too, curious to see what they were talking about.

“Yeah,” Lucas told Rebecca. She ducked her head out of the line to catch a look at her boyfriend. He didn’t look so unsure about the gag anymore, so that was good. She gave him a thumbs up, just before the vice-principal told her to get back in line and she snapped back into place.

It only got more ‘complicated’ when a song started to work its way up the line, swelling and swelling until they were all singing it, every last one of them. The fact that it was a TXNY song only served to make Hart and Matthews and Zhu, and their friends, and their classmates, get louder and louder. The girls would each have videos from various points in the line of students by the time it ended with a loud cheer and the direction for all of them to start filing into the auditorium.

Maya had to very carefully wipe at her eyes she went, to hear her classmates not just singing one of the band’s songs but singing one for which _she’d_ written the words… Her family out in the audience must have seen her, because she quickly received a text from her father, asking if she was alright. In response, she sent him the video she’d just shot back in the hall.

“It’s just like class…”

Now that they were seated, it all felt more real, which was weird to think about when they’d already been walking around in caps and gowns, but to actually be in the room, that… that was when it really sank in for real. It was happening, they were graduating.

“Lucas,” she whispered, leaning over in her seat. He turned to look at her.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“I never got to ask, how was it this morning? The breakfast?” He looked around, checking to see if they were about to start. It didn’t look that way, so he turned around in his seat as best he could.

“Well, we can take the leftovers with us on the trip…” he told her, and she chuckled. “But it was okay. They’re all excited to be here,” he looked up past her. It wasn’t hard to spot where his family sat. Even in a crowd, he could pick out the distant tone of his mother’s voice, and there she was, chatting away with Zay’s mother and father. His father and grandfather were talking, too, though when Pappy Joe looked forward his eyes found his grandson’s, and the two of them waved to one another.

“I still can’t believe they’re here,” Maya told him, and he knew she was talking about her brother and sister from New York.

Seeing how happy it made her, he was very glad that they were here, too. It also reminded him of the fact that while Sam and Cara and their mother were here, their father, Maya’s father, was not. Did she think about that? She must have, but he couldn’t ask her, he didn’t want it weighing on her through this moment if she hadn’t thought about it.

“Think it’s time you face forward, VP’s making eyes again,” Maya told him, and he briefly reached out over his row of seats, bumping fists with her before turning to sit forward in his place. It was starting.

TO BE CONTINUED


	348. Their Graduation From Everything

As it turned out, the only part they really wanted to get to was the one where they walked the stage, and that wasn’t happening, not yet. First, there were speeches… so many speeches. The principal, the vice-principal, a few teachers, some students… It wasn’t as though they sat there and tuned everyone out or _anyone_ out, not on purpose. But every so often it was just so much easier to let their thoughts wander to something else, like they’d hit mute on whoever was up there at the time.

Lucas found himself thinking about Houston. It wasn’t too much of a stretch, seeing as they’d be moving out there in a little over a month. That would give them a few weeks to settle in, both into the house and into the city that was to be their home for the foreseeable future. Sitting in the auditorium, waiting for the time when he’d have to go on stage, Lucas thought about the city that would become his home, and he felt like he couldn’t wait to get there.

They’d spent so much time looking forward to their future, looking forward to what they’d get to do and what they would become, that now he just wanted to get to that point already. He wanted to move into the house, with Maya, with Dylan, and Riley, and Sophie. He wanted them to unpack, and make it their own. He wanted Maya and him to get their dog – or dogs – and bring them into that home. He wanted to find a job, wanted to start going to school. Strange as it sounded, he wanted those days, coming home from exhausting days and sitting around with the others. He wanted to find their answer to the diner, to Ma Maggie’s, the movie theater, the museum, the park, all the places that made the neighborhood their home.

He was ready for his future. He was ready to start it… and to start it with her. It took everything in him not to turn around and look at her again, and in that moment he was starting to get why her father had made that comment about history possibly repeating itself at _this_ graduation ceremony, because, well, he wasn’t completely wrong, was he?

He took a breath, reminding himself that there _would_ be a day, somewhere down the line, when he’d kneel before Maya Hart and ask her to be his wife. He knew it, and _she_ knew it, so… did that mean, to some degree, they were already engaged? The ring would only make it official, only make it imminent. They didn’t need that now. They were moving in together, and that was plenty move forward… for the time being.

In the row behind him, Maya had spaced out from the speeches, too. She was still in that headspace of how it had felt, back in the hall, with her classmates all singing her song, her words. Between that and their guests back at the house that morning, and the pictures with her friends, her head felt like it was buzzing, that specific buzzing that made her want to dig out her sketchbook and pencils. She just needed so badly to put this feeling to paper…

This was possibly the biggest shift in her life since the move to Austin. There was the band, sure, but that had been their doing, generally speaking. They had chosen to become a band. They hadn’t expected this success they’d been getting, but all the power remained theirs, to carry on or not, and they had, and they still did, still would, if they could just figure out how they’d deal with the new geographical split about to part them even further.

The move had not been her choice, and it had split her life in a before and an after. Graduation and everything it entailed, that was not her choice either, that was just a milestone that had always been on the road for them, waiting to be crossed. That was a before and an after, too. And now that it was happening, it was like she was entering the third age of her life, each of them happening in a different city. New York. Austin. Houston…

She wasn’t scared this time, not like she had been the last time they’d moved. The situations were different, sure, but not so different that they were disconnected. Both times, she was leaving behind everything she knew, starting over. The first time, she’d had only her mother to rely on, and she’d also been much younger. It had seemed like so much more of a big deal back then.

It helped that she wasn’t moving so far away that she couldn’t just visit whenever she needed to, of course. Her mother, her father, her sisters and the baby, they’d be all of two hours away. A lot more of her friends would be off in New York, and Boston, but she knew that wouldn’t keep them apart, because it hadn’t kept her and Farkle and Smackle apart, hadn’t kept her and siblings apart. And in Houston, she’d have Lucas, and she’d have Riley, and she’d have Dylan, and Sophie. She would be working toward her future, a future she was genuinely excited for. The first time they’d moved, what did she have to look forward to?

She’d been staring at the back of Lucas’ head for a little while now, and when she became aware of it, she smiled to herself. _Just like in class…_ Pretending like he hadn’t been the biggest influence, the biggest force for change in her life, from the start of this second age of her life up to now, would have been both a lie and a disservice to him. It was all the others, too, but Lucas… Lucas was in her heart, and he was in all the dreams she had of that great future up ahead of them…

TO BE CONTINUED


	349. Their Graduation From a Ceremony

“Isaiah Babineaux,” the principal called.

They had been made to file out of their seats now, back to stand in a row, taking the stage one by one. There was no singing this time, no messing around. They were all listening, moving forward little by little. Maya craned her neck, looking behind her to where the last ones stood, Nadine and Sophie with their eternally last-to-be-called status. They’d have to wait until later to find out how it had gone for those who were much further ahead of them, like Zay, the first of them to go up.

“Won’t be long, now,” Rebecca turned to look at Connor and Lucas. She took a deep breath. “Is my cap on right?” she asked, just as they heard…

“Rebecca Fitz.”

Lucas and Connor both only had time to nod and she was marching up on to the stage. Lucas could at least see as she went and was handed her diploma, shook the principal’s hand… She waved to where her mothers and her father had to be sitting as she kept on walking to the other side of the stage, where she walked back down to her seat. After Connor was called, Lucas turned to look back down the line for a moment, finding Maya there. She held two thumbs up, blew him a kiss, so he had a smile on his face when the principal called…

“Lucas Friar.”

As he’d expected, he heard his mother loud and clear as he passed on to the stage, walking toward the principal. He also heard a telltale call, from back in the wings, and the next thing he knew he had his diploma and he was walking onward. He’d barely made it back to his seat when the principal called for…

“Asher Garcia.”

… and as one, both the Garcia twins walked on to the stage together. It garnered loud cheers from their classmates, and a few chuckles, too. The principal looked like he didn’t know what to do anymore, didn’t know who he was supposed to hand the diploma to. Asher raised his hand, and the principal sighed as he handed the roll over, looking to the next one, reading a demure “Joseph Garcia” that sort of fit the next diploma’s recipient perfectly. Joey received it, and the brothers marched off stage together.

“Okay, that was even better than the switch,” Lucas admitted as they sat in their seats.

“It was his idea,” Asher admitted, tilting his head to his brother. Joey just smiled quietly.

Lucas turned his head back to the stage now, knowing it was only a matter of time before she went. When Mara Harris was called up, he looked to where he could see her, just at the spot where they were told to stand when they were next. She had that look about her like she was singing in her head, a sort of minimalist dancing motion to her limbs.

“Maya Hart.”

She _had_ been singing in her head, or at least she’d been hearing the choral sound of her classmates earlier. It had put this feeling in her head, like the nugget of a new song just waiting to be nurtured into being, and she wasn’t going to let it get away from her. When her name was called though, she had to set it in the back of her head and walk forward. As she expected, Lucas reciprocated the call she’d given _him_ when his turn had come.

She looked at him, there in the audience again, made a face at him, and then her eyes moved up to where she could track down her family. Her mother and father, Abigail and Sam and Cara, Turner… She wished the twins could have been here, but it would have been too complicated, and they wouldn’t even have remembered. But the others, they were here… and that was what she thought of as she walked off with her high school diploma in her hands. She kept looking down at it every few seconds as the next few names went by, like it would disappear if she didn’t pay attention.

“Riley Matthews.”

When she walked on to the stage, Maya gave her as good as she’d gotten when it had been her turn. For a year she’d believed they wouldn’t get to share this moment, the two of them, and then Riley had moved to Austin, too, and suddenly the dream was alive again. Now here they were, and it was everything she could have wanted.

“Dylan Orlando.”

Even though he had opted out of going to college, even though it had made things sort of awkward between him and his family, when he walked out to get his diploma, they could hear his family cheering him on. No matter what, they were as proud of him as his friends were, and that would go a long way.

After Dylan, it took some time before the next of their friends were called up, but then they knew that by the time those two were called it would mean the whole thing was nearly over and they could get out of here. That was good, because, as it turned out, sitting in an auditorium in the summer in a cap and gown was a sweaty situation. But then, finally…

“Nadine Zhu.”

“There she is!” they heard what could only be Zay as Nadine strode across the stage. It got a laugh out of the rest of them dotted through the seats. Nadine was resisting the urge to laugh, too, they could see it, no matter how well she fought against it. And when she’d gone by, the principal read out the last name.

“Sophie Zvolensky.”

When she walked on to the stage, cheered on by her friends and her classmates, the redhead blushed as red as she’d hoped she wouldn’t, but she didn’t look too worried about it. She was grinning, she was happy, and with her diploma she walked off at a jog to rejoin Nadine, as the principal congratulated the graduating class of 2021.

TO BE CONTINUED


	350. Their Graduation From Austin

Asher and Joey’s uncle had closed the diner for the day, giving it over to his nephews, their friends, and their families, to host the kids’ graduation party. After they’d all left the school, they had reconvened here, soon fed a much-needed late lunch. Every last table had been pushed together into a curved row, chairs all around, enabling the assembled guests to mix up rather than break apart.

“What is this?” Maya gasped, her face freezing into an amused smile when she saw the plate that was brought to sit before Lucas. He turned to look at her and she just giggled. “Yeah, you look all guilty like that, Mr. ‘It’s too eggy,’ you totally like French toast now, admit it and say ‘thank you, Maya, you were right,’” she waved her hand toward him. He turned back to his plate like he was going to pretend he hadn’t heard her. “Say it,” she insisted.

“I’m sorry, I’m starving, I just need to…” he took up his knife and fork to start cutting into his meal.

“Say it or I’ll take it away from you,” she dared.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I would, and you know it.” He looked to her plate, which held a burger and fries. It reminded him of the day, last summer, when he’d gone to find her in Philadelphia, when the ban had been lifted. That was when she’d convinced him to try the French toast, while she’d had the burger and fries, like now. He let out a breath, then leaned in to whisper at her ear.

“Thank you, Maya, you were right.” She smiled, all the while reaching for a few of her fries, setting them in a corner of his plate. “As usual,” he added, and she kissed his shoulder.

As they ate on, graduates and guests both shared some of their respective points of view of the day, either as participant or audience. Maya and Lucas and their friends were able to see some of the videos taken of their walks across the stage. Some of them loved to see themselves or the others get their turn, while others found they couldn’t watch their own walk.

“Is this like actors that don’t watch their own movies or something?” Asher asked, when Nadine didn’t want to see hers.

“I don’t know about actors, but I’m good,” she shrugged.

After the videos of the actual graduation, the ones of the graduates singing in the hall were the other big share. Maya didn’t know what made her happiest, to see the pride in her parents’ faces, or the excitement in her young siblings. Cara in particular was having Her Best Day, not only partaking in her big sister’s graduation day but getting to sit and share a meal with three out of the four members of her favorite band.

“Wait, you’re not going with them?” she turned to Nadine when she found out about where she was going to college.

“Cara,” her mother warned.

“Oh, it’s okay,” Nadine insisted, nodding to Abigail before turning back to Cara. “I’m going to school in Boston, that’s true, but it doesn’t mean the band’s going to stop, does it?” she looked back to Maya and Riley. They both shook their heads.

“We haven’t figured out the details just yet, but we will,” Maya promised her sister. “In fact, I think we have a new song coming together,” she revealed in a tone of mystery and mischief. Cara was at once curious, and at that Maya had another thought, maybe even a better one. “You guys are sticking around for a couple days, yeah?” she asked, checking with Abigail and getting confirmation. “I think, what this song needs is one more voice. The question is… where could I find one?” Maya pondered aloud, all the while keeping eye contact with her sister.

“Me?” Cara gasped. “I-in a TXNY song?”

“Only if you want to, I mean I wouldn’t want to…”

“Okay, I’ll do it!” Cara cut in, and Maya offered her hand.

“Welcome to the team,” she declared as her sister shook her hand.

After the meal had been consumed and the plates cleared away, some of the tables had been pushed aside, others left for any who preferred to sit and talk. Maya had taken Lucas by the hand, even as she caught some of the others’ eyes, before nodding to the door leading to the roof. Little by little, the ten of them, along with Scott, disappeared through that door and gathered to hang out apart from their families, just them again if only for a little while.

“It’s so weird to say it… High school’s done, we’re going to college, to… life…” Maya shook her head, looking to the city around them. Lucas, standing next to her, looked like he meant to ask her something, like he’d been wanting to ask it for a long time. “It’s fine,” she told him.

“I didn’t…”

“You want to know if I’m okay that my… Kermit didn’t come.” She didn’t want to call him her father, not if she could help it, not when she had Shawn. “I’m okay, it’s fine. I wouldn’t have wanted him to come anyway. All it would have done would be to make things awkward for my parents, for Sam and Cara… for me… The people that I wanted to come, they were here.” Having her littler siblings be there would have been good, too, but that wasn’t the same.

Sophie turned up music on her phone, and next thing they knew, they were all dancing around, even shy Joey, though in his case it looked more like a lot of teetering side to side. They danced and danced, they couldn’t say how long, only that it ended when a few ‘pings’ from a few different phones reminded them that their families had to be looking for them. They needed to go back to their party and leave this one.

When they returned to the diner, after a brief talking to by some of the parents, there were presents. Here, the various family units split up, in one corner of the diner or another.

Shawn handed Maya a box, wrapped neatly. She smiled, taking the bow on top and sticking it atop Cara’s blond hair, making her giggle. The ribbon was loosened, added to Cara’s ensemble as a very loose necklace. The wrapping paper was pulled apart, as she would usually remove it, trying not to get any hint whatsoever about what was underneath until the entire thing was uncovered. When the paper did fall away, Maya looked down to find a plain brown wooden box.

“Okay…” she frowned, intrigued.

“Don’t open it yet,” her father told her, a knowing smile on his face.

“You’re giving me a present, but I’m not supposed to open it yet?” she asked, pointing down to the box as though to say ‘then why did you let me unwrap it?’

“I’m giving it to you now because it’s for your graduation, but it’s for Houston, too. Take it with you when you go.”

“And when do I open it?” she asked, her curiosity not diminishing. Her father just went on smiling.

“You’ll know,” he replied. Maya looked to her mother, who held up her hands.

“Don’t look at me, this is his thing,” Katy declared.

“This whole cryptic side, not sure how I feel about it, Dad,” Maya shook her head, though she smiled, moving to hug her father. “Thanks for the mystery box. I’m pretty sure I’m going to love it.”

“What is it?” Lucas asked, sitting across the diner, when his grandfather handed him a small, wrapped box.

“See, the way you find out is you open it and look inside,” Pappy Joe chuckled. So, Lucas unwrapped it. Inside the box, he found a trio of keys on a keychain.

“You already gave me your car,” Lucas didn’t understand. Pappy Joe nodded down to the box as though to say ‘look closer.’ Lucas did as he was told. After a moment, he frowned. He knew these keys, this keychain, they were… “Wait, that’s…” he looked back up, blinking.

“Think of it as… a possibility. I don’t want you to feel any obligation toward it. You go out there, to Houston, you go to school, do your thing, and when it’s all over, if you choose to return to Austin, to settle down, you can either sell up and get some other place, or you can take that. The house, the land… I moved in with you three because I had to, but it’s all still mine, or at least it was. I signed it all over to you, Lucas. They’re yours, the house, the land. I know you’ll do what’s right for you, for your future.”

At the word, his head swivelled, finding Maya across the room with her family, before turning back to look at the keys. He let out a breath, still bewildered.

TO BE CONTINUED


	351. Their Steps For Picking

They were now in the midway point. Graduation was the day before yesterday, and departure was the day after tomorrow. It was madness.

Yesterday, they were still sort of coming off the high of graduation, so much as they were preparing for the trip, it was all still sort of relaxed. Maya had been able to just hang out at home with her parents, her sisters, her guests… The words to the new song had been written out, with both Cara and Sam there to pitch in where they could.

Somehow, they worked out the melody between the three of them, and the next thing she knew, they were recording a version, just the girls singing, while Maya played the guitar. Sam stood by with the camera, filming them. When they were done, they huddled together to watch the results, and it might have been one of her most favorite things she’d ever done.

“Are you going to post it?” Cara asked.

“Do you want me to?” Maya asked back, smiling at the clear eagerness on the girl’s face as she nodded. “Okay,” she laughed, and Cara hugged her.

“You guys can do a bunch of these on your trip, when you’re all together,” Sam pitched in, much to his little sister’s agreement.

“Oh, way ahead of you,” Maya promised them.

They couldn’t exactly pack all the instruments for the road, not with the way they’d be going, but she was definitely bringing the guitar. It would make for an interesting sound, and she knew she wasn’t the only one eager to see what they’d come up with.

The guitar was all set to go right now, one of the only things she could claim as being ready. As for the rest, the stuff that would go in her big bag, it was… well, let’s say it was a work in progress.

She’d started off gathering everything she wanted to bring, or thought she should bring, or definitely knew she had to bring. And all in all… it was a lot. So much. Too much. Now, she was making cuts. The idea was definitely to come up with less items than she had space for, because of course she was bound to return with new acquisitions. She understood that. But, still, she was looking at what she had left and she knew it was too much, and she was struggling to decide what had to go.

“You are not bringing a second bag, you’re not…” she breathed.

“Talking to yourself?” She turned around to find Jonathan Turner standing, or rather bent forward on the basement steps so he could see her.

“Ever had those moments when you had force yourself to just… do something already?”

“If I say yes, do you promise not to ask me how many times?” he came further down the steps.

“Deal,” she promised, letting out a sigh.

“Alright, what do you guys plan on doing on this trip?” he asked, sitting on the bottom steps.

“Go places, see things?” she shrugged.

“So, clothes. They can be washed, worn again.” She understood what he was getting at. Cut back. “Shoes, you only need a really good pair, maybe a backup, then a bit… dressier one, if you’re going anywhere sneakers won’t do.”

Bit by bit, they worked through it all. He would make suggestions, and she’d act in consequence. They were eliminating the clutter in her thoughts, and the bag was coming together. Before she knew it, she was closing it, with space to spare, just as she’d wanted.

“Nice work there,” she nodded, looking back to him. “Now, give it to me straight, are you trying to earn points in your column for baby names?” she teased, and he laughed.

“Big competition?” he asked.

“Like you wouldn’t believe. They don’t even know if it’s a boy or girl yet, though my mom’s convinced it’s a boy this time and we’ve been running with it ever since.

“Contenders?”

“I’ll give you one guess who’s running the fiercest campaign. Pretty sure Mr. Matthews has been telling my dad to name a kid after him since before he even met my mother.”

“Oh, he has,” Turner confirmed, and she blinked with instant curiosity. “Story for another time. Who else?”

“Well, I’ve been saying, since the twins were named after Mom’s and my middle names, it would only be fair, if it is a boy, that he should get Dad’s.”

“Patrick,” he nodded, and she nodded back.

“Then there’s the other Mr. Matthews, Riley’s grandfather. Dad’s told me so much, how he meant a lot to him growing up. And you, too,” she gave a smile.

“You’re right, that’s a lot of names.”

“It might not even matter, if it’s actually a girl. Or, it might not be their last one, the way they’re going. They just have to make up their minds for this one.”

She knew she wouldn’t be gone so long that anything too big would have happened, but in her head, she couldn’t help but picture it like she would return from the trip and her mother would be about to burst. It wouldn’t be that way, not now, but eventually… She’d be in Houston by the time he or she was born, she might have to hurry back, she might… she might miss the birth… She couldn’t, oh, she couldn’t.

“All good here?” Turner asked, nodding to her bag.

“Yes… thank you,” she smiled and nodded. She watched him climb back up the stairs. Had her parents sent him down here to help her? The two of them, they could come on a bit strong in all this, looking no more ready to see her go away than she was to leave them behind, so down had come the sounder option. Well, now it was done.

Just as she was about to go up the stairs to see what they were all up to, there was a knock at her window.

TO BE CONTINUED


	352. Their Steps For Packing

His mother had been surprisingly quiet about his impending departure over the last two days. Lucas had been so sure that she would be reaching the next level right about now. He was officially a high school graduate, he was about to fly off with his friends to Europe, and when he came back, he’d be moving out of the city to go to college. So where was the panic? Where was the overcompensating? It wasn’t that he wanted it, but somehow its absence was leaving him kind of… confused?

She had been helping him pack his things. That much was on track with what he had figured would happen. Melinda Friar was who you wanted at your side when packing for a trip. By the time they’d be done, his bag would look so well organized that he’d feel bad messing it up. Maybe she was just focusing on the task, maybe she wanted him not to feel bad about going, because of course he wasn’t supposed to feel bad. But if that was it… No, he didn’t see her able to help herself, so…

“Mom?” he asked, as she was reaching for a pile of some of his clothes to fold. “Oh, I’ll get those,” he frowned, momentarily distracted from his inquiry for the sake of folding his underwear himself. That made her smirk, that ‘Who do you think has been folding them all your life, Lucas Friar’ smirk. He coughed, clearing his throat. He had to get back on topic. “You’re okay with me going, aren’t you?”

“Of course, I am, why would you think I’m not?” she asked, smiling at him. He hesitated. Maybe he shouldn’t say anything, maybe it would only make things worse.

“Nothing, it’s fine,” he finally shrugged, getting back to the folding. As he went on, he could tell she was still watching him out of the corner of her eye. When she didn’t bring it up again, the minutes moving forward in silence, he felt that same impulse to want to know all over again. “Are you sure?” She tilted her head, inviting him to speak up. “I thought you’d be… well…”

“Bawling like a banshee?” she provided.

“I… I wasn’t going to put it like that…” he promised, feeling a bit shy for it. She laughed.

“Here I was thinking I was leading by example.” He frowned, not following. She let out a breath, turning toward him and nudging for him to turn and face her, too. “You, my Luke, you are what matters most to me in my life, do you hear me?” He nodded, feeling his face relax into a smile. “The day you were born, the day they gave you to me, I held you, and I made a promise. I thought it all up in my head, and it’s been there all those years.

“I promised you happiness, and love, and life, and I promised _myself_ something, too. I know who I am, I know how people see me, of course I do,” she shrugged. “I promised myself that I wouldn’t stand in the way of those things I’d promised you, not ever.” _Happiness, love, life…_ Looking back into her face, into those features she’d passed on to him, he could think of moments where she’d kept that promise, for each of them.

Happiness… He hadn’t been too happy, in the time when he’d been suspended from school and he’d been stuck at home, but his mother had been there the whole time, and she’d done so much to ensure he didn’t sit moping around the whole time. And love… love… Maya… His mother had recognized her importance right from the start, and she’d nurtured it. And when there had been the ban, she’d stood by them, her and his father both, and it had meant more to him than he could have said.

And life… Here it was. This was the moment he was about to step into the world, independent from them, and she wasn’t making a spectacle of her feelings, though he didn’t doubt she was overflowing with them right now. No, she was helping him.

It wasn’t until he sniffled that he realized he had shed some tears. His mother reached over to wipe them away now, and instead of letting her do it, he reached over and hugged her. She hugged him back, that all-encompassing sort of hug he was just as likely to give to those who meant the most to him.

Eventually they got back to work, until his bag was all set and ready, not a thing missing. They still had a whole day before he actually went, but it had made sense to all of them that they should finish their packing early enough that they wouldn’t be rushing at the last minute… and they’d have time left to spend with their families.

“I tell you, it’ll be good to have all three of you boys here, even for just a day,” his mother told him as they went down the stairs. The New York contingent of their traveling party – Smackle, Farkle, and Ray – were flying in the next morning. Smackle would spend the night at Maya’s, but of course the guys had been directed to his house, his mother all too happy to have their summer visitor and the boy they’d taken into their home once again under her roof.

“I know,” Lucas beamed. Tomorrow, it was all starting. Tonight… “Hey, is it alright if I go out for a while?” His mother only smiled, nodding toward the door. He moved and kissed her cheek before getting into his grandfather’s car, driving off to the Hunter Hart house. He started toward the door, then stopped, thinking otherwise. With a smile, he went around the side of the house instead, crouching to knock on the basement window.

TO BE CONTINUED


	353. Their Steps For Escaping

Maya quickly moved to open the window, finding her boyfriend’s face on the other side. Without a word, she pushed the step ladder into place, allowing him to climb into the room.

“What are you doing?” she asked, laughing, as he reached the ground with a hop and followed through into embracing her like he was about to spin her around.

“I am kidnapping you,” he declared, and she had to bite back a snort.

“Wouldn’t that suggest I’m unwilling to go? Because I’m telling you right now, I don’t have an unwilling bone in my body when it comes to you,” she declared right back.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” he kissed her. “Alright, so I’m not kidnapping you, I’m… borrowing you. Better?” She shrugged. “Look, tomorrow the others are flying in, and from that point on it’s going to be like when the rollercoaster passes over the peak, you know?”

“You’re lucky I actually do,” Maya smiled. “So, what’s the plan?”

“Want to go see a movie?” he suggested. “Get ice cream on the way back?”

“I could be convinced,” she agreed, and he pointed back to the window. “Sneaking out almost doesn’t feel like it has a point anymore,” she sighed. “Plus, I really just need to tell them, don’t I?”

“Yeah, probably,” he bowed his head. As much as he knew his family was adjusting to his going away, he had to remember hers was doing the same.

“Hey, I’m going out!” she shouted back toward the door then, startling him.

“Don’t come home too late, alright?” Katy’s voice was heard from above. “Hey, Lucas!” she added, and he blinked, while Maya tried not to laugh.

“H-hey!” he called back.

“Okay, let’s go,” she moved to climb on the step ladder, hoisting herself up through the window and rolling on to her feet like it was the most natural way of going in or out of one’s house. Lucas followed right behind and they went to his car.

“Done packing?” he asked as they drove off.

“Right before you showed up,” she confirmed with a nod. “Had some help from Turner. If he hadn’t come in, I think I’d still be staring at a pile of stuff. You?”

“My mother helped me. We had a good talk, too,” he revealed with a smile, though he left it at that, and she didn’t urge him on.

“What are we going to go see?” she asked instead.

“I didn’t actually look to see what was playing,” he admitted. “I just realized I had to see you tonight, and then I went to see you.”

“And borrow me,” she added before pulling out her phone. “Alright, let’s see.”

They arrived at the theater, choice made, to come across those of their friends who worked here, namely Riley, Rebecca, and Dylan. It was only when they saw them that they remembered what today was. It was their last day working here, all of them. Like Lucas and the museum, like Maya and Nadine and Asher, they’d had to quit their jobs here in Austin, as they’d be moving, and while the others had had their last days already, today was theirs.

“You okay there?” Maya asked with a sympathetic smile, approaching Riley at the concession stand. She looked like she was going to burst into tears at any second.

“I’ve been plugging up the dam all afternoon,” Rebecca reported, standing at the next register.

“Hey… Farkle and Smackle are coming tomorrow, remember?” Maya told her best friend of old, grasping her hands. Riley’s face smiled like it had no choice in the matter, and the reflex was enough to fix the smile in place.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Rebecca sighed, still smiling.

“I just like it here, you know?” Riley told Maya and Lucas both.

“We know,” Lucas promised.

Finding their seats in the theater, it took little to no time before Maya had her head on Lucas’ shoulder, and he had his arm around her. He kind of suspected, as he’d done from the start, that it was halfway about how she loved getting to be close to him and halfway that she just enjoyed being _that_ couple at the movies.

“You know what we should do?” she asked, walking out of the ice cream store a couple of hours later, with cones in hand.

“What?” he asked.

“We should go see the same movie in all the countries we’ll visit that have them in different languages. It’ll be funny,” she grinned. He chuckled for a moment, but then the more he thought about it, it was actually a really good idea.

“Sure, I’m in,” he told her, and she walked taller, smiling along.

As they walked, talking about this and that, he thought about those keys he’d been handed on graduation day. He hadn’t told her yet. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to know, if anything, he couldn’t wait to tell her. But then the more he thought about it, about the fact that he had in essence just become a homeowner, he didn’t want it to be this thing hanging over their heads which might alter the course of wherever life took them.

And like his grandfather had said, he could do anything he wished, could keep the house and the land or sell them and get some other place. One day, they would be ready for that next step, and when that day came, he was going to surprise her. There was the smallest chance that his keeping this secret for all that time might be taken the wrong way, but he was confident it wouldn’t be. This was as it should be, their life, one step at a time.

“Oh, come here,” Maya pulled him toward a bench nearby and they sat down. “I have to show you this video, Cara and I recorded a new song,” she told him, cueing up her phone on her knee before handing him an earbud. And for the next few minutes they sat there, eating their ice cream and listening to the sisters singing in harmony.

TO BE CONTINUED


	354. Their Steps For Enjoying

It had been up to Lucas and Asher to pick up the three of them from the airport that next morning. Much as they would have liked to make the trek up there, all of them, they knew it just wasn’t practical. Several of them weren’t nearly as advanced in their preparations as they would have hoped to be, and all of them were spending time with their families as much as they could; they’d have plenty of time to be with each other when they took off the next morning.

Lucas had intended to go and get Farkle, Smackle and Ray on his own, but Asher had insisted on coming. He hadn’t seen his boyfriend in a few months, since the prom surprise, and he wasn’t putting off their reunion longer than he had to. It was the only one he had left to have. They were going on the trip and, after that, they would be making the journey back to New York together, when Asher relocated there permanently, for school.

After they’d gotten the three of them and their baggage, they’d driven back, dropping Smackle off at Maya’s, where they spent a few hours, and then continuing on to the Friar house.

The reunion with Lucas’ mother had been about as loud as they would have expected it to be. She hugged both boys like she had no plan to let either of them go anytime soon.

The rest of the day had been spent just hanging about. Lucas’ bag was all set to go, and of course Farkle and Ray’s were, too, and so was Asher’s. After they’d all had dinner together, Asher had taken Ray back to his house, where he’d be bunking for the night, until they all headed to the airport again in the morning. That left Lucas and Farkle and the Friars for the evening after all.

Having Farkle be here, it was one of those instances where Lucas couldn’t help but think about how he’d been growing up back in New York. They talked often, sure, but it was never the same as being in the same place. Farkle looked to him like a guy who was ready for all that was coming next in their lives. Lucas was sure that somewhere under there his friend and brother had some shaky nerves of his own, but he was managing them pretty well.

By the time they were all turning in for the night, Lucas found he couldn’t sleep. He was staring at the ceiling, and he was wide awake, tired, but wide awake. He was excited for the trip, he was. After all this time, going from a sort of fever dream between friends sitting together in Zay’s aunt’s backyard, through three years of saving up money, of planning, they were just hours away from taking off, and he didn’t know how it had happened but it seemed like some of his mother’s fretting was trying to settle in him. So much could go wrong. And then his family, staying behind…

He sat up in his bed, sighing and rubbing at his face. This was ridiculous. He wasn’t a kid anymore, he was twenty, he was starting his life and that was as it should be. Except there was still something in him that refused not to let the questions and insecurities pile up. Had he let the hype get to his head, the thought of their all going so much further than they’d ever gone, and on their own? Maybe, a little. So, right now… he could only let the time between now and the flight trickle away. He’d much prefer doing it while asleep, not like… this.

The evening had been good, great even. Having Farkle here, and Ray earlier, and Smackle before that, it inevitably changed the atmosphere, wherever they were, and none more than at his house. It was so good to have them here again, and both at once especially. It made them all happy, and everyone would freely admit it was particularly true of his mother. It was one more reminder of the big family she’d hoped to have, even though she never did.

Not wanting to run the risk of waking Farkle up, he padded out of the room and went down the stairs. He sat on the couch, picking up one of those large books his mother kept on the coffee table. He set it on his lap, opening it and turning the pages one by one, looking but not really reading. With any luck, it would help him fall asleep.

“I thought I’d find you here.” He startled, looking up to find his father standing there, staring back at him from the bottom of the stairs. Lucas put the book back on the table, careful not to let it thud.

“I was just…”

“Couldn’t sleep, I know. I’m the same way, remember?” That was true, and he did know, though it might have slipped his mind just a bit. His father came forward, motioning for him to follow into the kitchen. “Sit,” he indicated. “I’ve got the cure right here, call it my parting gift to you.” Lucas watched as his father assembled a few things from the pantry and the fridge before bringing him a glass and plate and the same for himself.

They sat there for a little while, consuming ‘the cure’ as Thomas Friar told his son all about how he’d come up with this combo of his. By the time they were done, his father told him to go on back to bed. Lucas went, still unsure if he would manage to get to sleep but deciding to trust in his father. He let out a breath, settling back into his bed. And it wasn’t as though he just closed his eyes and was out like a light, no. But he did fall asleep, soon after that, and when he woke again it was morning.

TO BE CONTINUED


	355. Their Steps For Caring

It had been tempting to immediately convene the four members of the band, maybe have a sleepover, but then they were leaving in the morning, and they would all be together for days and days, while they wouldn’t be with their families, not until they returned. So, they would reunite when they got to the airport. For today, they were home.

Smackle’s arrival at her house had coincided with Maya’s having to say goodbye to her siblings and their mother, as Sam, Cara, and Abigail were now on their way back to New York, and to Mr. Turner, who was headed back home, too. It made the whole day feel just a bit off balance, being sad for the partings and happy for the reunions all at once. Neither of them cancelled the other out, but they also made it hard to process them both on their own.

Maya woke up that morning, knowing that though a part of it would be about the comings and goings, the part she couldn’t let get away from her was to give her family some dedicated time, one on one. Tomorrow morning would be too hectic, they needed to have this today.

She checked her sisters off that list in the morning, before anything had time to start. She was up early, so she got up and went up the stairs and into the nursery. She couldn’t just stay in her room anymore, all she could do was stare at her backpack and guitar case and feel her heart jumping around, thinking about finally flying off.

Contrary to what she’d grown to expect, the sister she found awake and standing in her crib that morning was Gracie. Maya picked her up, those little arms stretched out eagerly toward her.

“Hey, Mouse-Mouse…” she whispered, kissing the side of her head, walking around with her. They had never been apart for as long as they were about to be, even if it paled in comparison to what it would be like once she made the move to Houston.

Even though she’d known it, this morning it was really hitting her, and as she held her little sister, she felt that sadness settle in her. Gracie, in her arms, seemed to understand something of that, in whatever way she could, as she nestled herself peacefully in Maya’s arms.

“I know it’s silly, but just… don’t forget me while I’m gone, okay? I don’t think I could take you not looking at me like you do anymore.”

A few minutes later, Nellie started to wake up, too, and so she was collected from her crib, to join her sisters at the bay window. There, Maya took up their favorite little story book, and she read the story to them, voices and all.

Even after her parents got up, Maya told them that, until the others arrived, she wanted to look after the twins. She saw them through their breakfast, and through bath time, and she took them to the park. It was a memorable morning, for her part at least. Whether or not her sisters would retain any of it, she couldn’t say, but she told herself that they would.

By the time she arrived back at the house with the stroller and its napping occupants, she discovered that a few visitors had arrived. She very nearly missed Sam and Cara and their mother, who stopped by to say goodbye, and she hugged her brother and sister tight, thanking them again for being here for her graduation, and for the song they had done together. Mr. Turner was there, too, leaving on the same flight, and Maya thanked him for his help the previous day as well as for the visit.

And just as they had drove off with Shawn, another car came, this one carrying Lucas and their arrivals out of New York. That Isadora Smackle was the first to reach for her with open arms said so much of how far she’d come since the early days of their friendship. She was still not as comfortable as one might expect, but she had gotten _more_ comfortable, and that was something.

After everyone but her bandmate had gone on to their next stop, Maya told Smackle what she wished to do today, and her friend understood. She was all too glad to go and sit and read for a while, which left Maya able to turn the next name on her list.

She found her father in the small area he’d set up to develop photographs. He was hanging up one such image, and Maya stared up to look at it. Her graduation. This was the shot they’d taken afterward, her in her cap and gown, holding her diploma, her parents at either side of her, each holding one of the twins. So many smiles, so much love and pride…

“Think that’s my favorite,” she said, and he looked at her.

“Mine, too. That’s why I’m getting it developed now, figured you might want to take it with you.” She did. She really did.

They were in there a while, as she assisted him and they talked of this and that. When they went to step out into the light again, she stopped and turned to hug him. He closed his arms around her, and she breathed.

Going in search of her mother, she found her sitting on her bed, looking over some papers for the theater. When she spotted Maya stood at the door, she set those papers aside, nodding for her to come forward. Maya happily plopped down at her side, letting her mother hold her near.

“You’re not going to think I’m being a bit overprotective about the thought of you being out there on your own, are you? I mean, I know you won’t be _alone_ , but…”

“I understand,” Maya promised. “And I’m not… Well, maybe you _are_ being that, but… I don’t mind it. I know where it comes from. You never have to stop.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	356. Their Steps For Starting

Maya had always been one to be counted on for early wake up calls, and the next morning she stayed true to this trait. She was up and in the shower before the sun rose, and as she came back around to get dressed, Smackle was up, too, and on her way to get her turn. By the time Katy and Shawn were up, both girls had been sitting in the kitchen, sharing breakfast and talking about songs.

It was possibly the last bit of calm they’d experience until they were finally sitting on the plane and taking off.

Maya said her goodbyes to her sisters when they were dropped off at the neighbor’s, and then they were off to the airport. By now, all she wanted was to rejoin her friends, to get this trip started. It would still feel like a real lucid dream until they were actually on the plane, maybe even after that. It was happening. It was actually, finally, happening.

As they neared the airport, Maya’s phone buzzed. Looking down at it, she saw a text from Nadine. _Behind you._ She turned around in her seat and quickly spotted the Zhu family car behind them. She exchanged a wave with her friend, and Smackle did, too, turning to see what she was doing.

When they were finally there and able to get out of the car, the three bandmates were brought together, now more than ever waiting on their fourth. A quick message sent out to Riley quickly resulted in a reply that told them she and her family were already here, waiting for them, as were the Garcia and Zvolensky families. They ran into Rebecca and her mothers on the way in, and the Babineaux and Orlando families, too. The two groupings came together, much to the delight of all those involved.

“Anyone heard from Lucas?” Maya asked.

They weren’t going to be late, they weren’t. The morning at the Friar house had been hectic as could be, making sure that everyone was ready to go when they were supposed to go, and that much came through without a hitch. Then they got on the road, and then one of the tires suffered a flat, bringing them to a stop just barely on the side of the road.

At once, both Lucas and his father jumped out to go and switch it out, only to remember they’d had to leave it behind in order to fit the boys’ luggage.

“What do we do?” Lucas asked his father, looking around. No chance they might have been near a garage of some kind, right?

“I’m going to call someone to get it taken care of, but in the meantime, I’m putting you boys in a taxi.”

“What? Wait, Dad…”

“Who knows how long this is going to take, and you can’t miss that flight, alright?” He certainly didn’t want to get left behind, although he didn’t feel so good at the thought of saying his goodbyes to his parents on the side of a road, leaving them to stand there.

In the end, there was no way around it. So, as they waited for the taxi to arrive, the bags were pulled from the car, and the boys were hugged, kissed, had their hands shaken, were wished a wonderful trip and made to promise not to get into trouble, to write or call whenever they could, and to come back safe. When all promises had been made, like it had been waiting on that confirmation, the taxi arrived. And just like that, Lucas and Farkle were off, back on their way to the airport.

By the time they arrived and found their friends, they were the last ones to arrive, and they were just in time to go on ahead and move toward boarding. When Maya saw them come jogging along, finally, she looked as though she’d let out the greatest sigh of relief. She moved up to briefly kiss her boyfriend, already moving and leading him along as she asked about what had taken them so long, and also where his parents were.

“Last minute holdup,” Lucas explained, before telling her about their misadventures with the flat tire. “We wouldn’t have made it if we’d waited with them,” he stated even as he realized it. Absently, he checked his phone, and he was glad to see a text from his father to let him know that assistance had come along and they were now just about ready to start back toward home. Lucas wrote back, saying that he and Farkle were at the airport now, headed for boarding.

Bags were checked, and soon the moment had come, for most of the families here except the Friar, Minkus, and Smackle families. It was time for goodbyes. Some were more vocal than others, though it was hard to take notice when they were all having their own moments.

Maya breathed deep as she stood there, enveloped by the arms of her father and mother both at once. For a minute or so, none of them said a word. They only held to each other. Finally, they pulled back, and as much as there was this feeling in her like she might cry, seeing that her mother _was_ crying through her smile, and that her father was trying so hard _not_ to show that he was on the verge of tears, it somehow helped her keep it together.

“I’ll write as soon as we land,” she promised. “I’ll keep you posted so much, you’ll feel like you’re right there with me.” _You will be, in some ways_.

“So long as you don’t spend the entire time telling us what’s going on that you don’t get to enjoy what you’re seeing, okay?” Katy held her daughter’s gaze.

“Okay,” Maya smiled, kissing both their cheeks, taking one more hug a piece. And then she turned to Lucas, who held out his hand to her. She took it, and she followed him, and they headed for the gate.

TO BE CONTINUED


	357. Their Steps For Flying

They walked, one after the other, headed up toward and on to the plane. One by one they found their seats and took to them. They’d managed to end up very close together, over two rows, half by the windows and the others across the aisle from them, no breaks between them save for the aisle, which was something of a small miracle. Maya sat at the window of the second row, Lucas at her side, and Smackle next to him. Across the aisle, there sat Farkle, Joey, and Rebecca. On the row ahead, window side, were Riley, and Sophie, and Nadine, across the aisle from Zay, Dylan, Asher, and Ray.

“Just like school,” Lucas joked, looking to Maya, and she chuckled.

“That seems to be happening a lot lately,” she pointed out.

They still had to wait, not quite ready for takeoff, and the wait was proving to be one to test their patience. Not that they would go and be in any way acting out because of it, far from it. This was simply anticipation. The moment had come… or it was about to come. They just need to get off the ground and fly.

“What do you think we should do after we take off?” Lucas turned to Maya, to pass the time. “Want to watch a movie?” he pointed to the screen on the back of the seats ahead of them.

“Maybe,” she considered this, looking down to the travel sketch book she’d brought along with her rather than leaving it in her bag with the rest of her things.

“Unless there’s anything around here you’d like to immortalize,” Lucas suggested, understanding without the need for words. “I just don’t know what, or… who… that might be,” he went on, striking an unmistakable pose and making her laugh.

“I’ll know after we take off,” she finally told him. She hadn’t really made up her mind about what she wanted to do to pass the time, but she liked having options, preferred it even.

“Okay,” he nodded, sitting back.

He looked around. Though he couldn’t see all of them from where he sat, he knew the rest of their group was here, around him. They all seemed busy with their own conversations, with the person next to or across the aisle from them. All those he could see, or hear, they all seemed as giddy and anxious as the two of them were to get going already.

“Is it all still a bit weird to you?” Maya asked, drawing his attention back to her.

“What is?” he asked back.

“Taking off… after all this time planning,” she replied.

“It is,” he confessed. “It’s like we were just talking about this a minute ago, and now…”

“I know!” she breathed, sort of relieved that they were both feeling it. “And the next thing we know, it’ll all be over, and it’ll just be a thing in our past.” They hadn’t even lived it, and still the thought that it could end…

“We’ll remember it all our lives,” he vowed to her. “It’ll be a story we get to tell, over and over. We’ll think back about it with the rest of them,” he indicated their friends. “We’ll tell new friends about it, and acquaintances… We’ll share it with… well, you know,” he smiled, and she smiled back.

“I know,” she assured him. She couldn’t wait to make those memories. Looking down to her sketch kit, she let out a breath. This gift from her father, one day it might be something so valuable to her, to others in her family… It made her feel some small reverence toward it. She had to do right by these pages, and here and now she knew the first page wouldn’t be touched by her art, not exactly, but by the people who would make this trip with her.

One by one, each of her friends would receive the book, with the instruction to write a note to their future self, or anyone else who might see this chronicle of their travels someday. One by one they smiled and bent over the book and wrote, with more and more of their friends’ messages to sneak a glance at before they started.

They had nearly half the group’s writings in by the time they were informed that the flight was about to take off, and the scribbling session paused.

“If I want to hold your hand as we go, not for being scared but because I want to be holding your hand…” Maya turned to Lucas, and without a word he laced his fingers with hers. She smiled, and they looked out the window as they watched and felt the plane start to move forward, and move, and move, and then… then they were in the air, and climbing higher as they went.

This was it. They were flying. They had left. It was beginning.

The sketch book continued to make its rounds, until it reached Lucas, who wrote his own bit, and then Maya, who closed out the ball with her own message. Looking at the page, now that it was covered in those thirteen different handwritings, she knew it was just as this book was meant to begin. After that, she could close it until they landed, though she of course never let it out of her sight or reach.

She and Lucas did end up putting on a movie, though they kept one ear uncovered, the better to be able to talk to one another. It reminded them of the project they’d set out to see through, the movie they would see in as many languages as they could get to see it, in the various places they would visit. It might have sounded weird, to spend so much of the time they’d be spending in Europe by watching the same movie, but at the same time it felt like something that would bind the various parts of their journey, and everyone had been more than happy to follow through on the idea.

“You know what I’m going to miss?” he asked her, after the movie ended.

“From home?” she frowned, unsure what he was asking.

“No, well… not exactly. Just that the last time you went to Europe, you wrote me all those letters, you know, with the drawings and all that.” She gave him a look, amused.

“You want me to write you letters? About a trip you’re going to be a part of?” she wondered.

“Well… no… or… maybe? I don’t know?” It was hard not to smirk, seeing that look on his face, like he genuinely didn’t know, or he did know, but he suddenly felt foolish for bringing it up.

“I don’t know, it might not be a bad idea. We write each other… but we mail them home, for when we’re back,” she suggested. He was intrigued now.

“What would we write about?”

“What we did that day, what we felt… It’ll be like a diary, like… like these, but with words,” she patted the front of her sketch book. “Except it’ll be just for the two of us. No one else gets to see them.”

“I like that idea,” he nodded, beaming.

The two of them were for the most part off in their own bubble throughout the flight so far. Now as they looked around, they could see that a lot of the others were either watching movies of their own, or reading, or sleeping… They couldn’t arrive fast enough.

As they were informed that they would be arriving soon, everyone felt a renewed jolt of anticipation. For how much just being on the flight felt like the start of everything, the moment where they would step off the plane again, in a country that was a vast ocean from where they’d started, that would be the true start, and it was fast approaching. They still needed to actually land, and to get off the plane, get their luggage, before they could ever walk out of the airport, but all it took was to know how close they were finally getting, and then the anticipation would jolt back through them again.

Just as they’d done when the plane had taken off, Maya and Lucas held hands; it seemed like the thing to do, bookending their flight. The plane touched down on the ground, and it would soon come to a complete stop. Maya took up her sketch kit as they got up from their seats, waiting for their turn to start moving. The row of thirteen friends formed again, and they made their way off the plane.

Maya had been here before, three years ago. How it had been three years already, she couldn’t say. The place looked exactly the same, only now… Now she was a high school graduate, and she would be starting college soon, and… and she had all her friends here, and her best friends, and her boyfriend…

“Alright, let’s go.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	358. Their Journey Into an Arrival

A little while back, when they’d been really looking into their departure and the start of the trip, it had dawned on them that, being a group of thirteen, they might get easily separated in a crowd, and finding each other might be a thing. Rebecca had been the one to find a solution for them, in the form of bandanas she’d made, repurposing some old and new shirts branded with their school’s name and colors. They could attach them to their wrists, their clothes, their bags, or around their heads, whatever they chose, but it would be something for them to spot out, and the others had welcomed this with enthusiasm.

Now, here they were, all of them weaving through the airport, bandanas in one way or the other a part of their ensemble. It made them look like a team, and that was just fine by them.

Looking back at the rest of the group, Maya could see how much all of them were just overwhelmed, happily so, about being here. By the end of the flight they’d all been looking just a bit ready to crash and sleep for a while, but now they were as awake and alert as they could hope to be. For some of them, it was the first time they so much as left the continent, if not the country alone. Others _had_ travelled far, though never here, and it was a discovery in its own rights.

Maya _had_ been here, three years ago, and the thing that seemed to strike her the most was just how much she remembered it all. She could have been here just a minute ago and it would all have been the same. It was like she was picking up where she’d left off, only now… now they were all here with her. All those dear friends of hers, the ones she’d missed so much, being so far from them. There were a couple of them who hadn’t yet been in her life, not in so significant a way, but that didn’t diminish the happiness she felt for getting to experience this with them.

Lucas was doing some experiencing of his own. This was all so new to him, and he didn’t know what he liked most, that he was here at all, or that they were all here together, that he was here with _her_. Three years back, when she’d come out here with her parents, when he’d get her letters, he wished so much to be with her again, whether that meant that she’d be back or that he’d be over there with her, too. And now that he, that _they_ were here… It made him feel that what he’d wanted back then was to get to live these discoveries with her.

“Hey, food,” Zay pointed, his voice sounding more like he meant to say ‘I need to have some of it right now or I will drop.’

“I’m sure we can find a restaurant out there somewhere, can’t we?” Riley asked, indicating the exit off in the distance. _Her_ voice was saying something like ‘I just want to see what’s out there with my own eyes, finally.’

None of them were looking forward to having some kind of debate when they had not even made it out of the airport yet, and truth be told Zay wasn’t the only one looking for a meal. They’d eaten on the plane, not long after takeoff, but that was about it. So, appealing to patience on those more eager among them to see the city, they diverted toward a restaurant. And, as it turned out, getting to sit together, no longer cramped in two rows, did feel kind of better.

By the time they were all eating, even for those who hadn’t been in any hurry to stop and grab some food, the hunger presented itself in earnest in them. They were fed as much by the food as the conversation, as they shared their various experiences of the flight and of the food on the plane versus here. They also took the time to take a picture which they uploaded to the group chat they’d started for their families, deciding it would be easier to keep in contact and keep them updated on where they were and where they were headed. Right now, this update let them all know that they had landed safely.

“Let’s not get pulled in by the deluge,” Maya suggested, as the inevitable arrival of several responses had her phone dinging like it was having a nervous breakdown. “Who wants to see the city?” she looked to her friends, and their answer came in the form of cheers and laughter. So, they got up from the trio of tables which had been pushed together to accommodate them. With their bags secured, they started toward the exit that let them breathe their first bit of fresh air since Austin, Texas.

“Would it be very bad if I shouted ‘Hello, London!’ right now?” Riley asked, smiling.

“I mean, you could try it,” Maya shrugged, not sure whether she meant to encourage her friend to do it or not. In the end, Riley decided against it.

“The shuttle should be that way,” Nadine pointed. She’d made it her mission to get familiar with the cities they were planning to visit, the better to keep them from getting lost.

It was a short ride from the airport to the hotel, made shorter by how they tried to take in as much as they could of their surroundings as they went. As sights went, the hotel was something else. Sophie had told them where they were going, and some of them had been too curious not to look it up, but even for having seen it in photos – where they almost felt the need to convince Sophie to choose a smaller, cheaper place – the real thing was leaving most of them gobsmacked.

“Does anyone else feel sort of… underdressed all of a sudden?” Asher asked. His brother raised his hand, immediately sinking into his shiest state, the one where he looked like he was trying _real_ hard to turn invisible.

“I feel like when I’d come home from practice without showering and I got yelled at,” Dylan declared.

“Just be cool,” Nadine told the others, throwing a look to her boyfriend.

“Guys, relax,” Sophie turned to look at them. “The moment anyone hears ‘Diana Zvolensky,’ we could be dressed in sacks and covered in dirt and they’d ask if we had a nice flight,” she whispered, which did put some of them at ease, though the others still looked unsure as they approached and a man opened the door for them.

Those who had known Sophie Zvolensky long enough were likely to have experienced at one time or another what they quietly referred to as her ‘secret beast side.’ And on this day, seeing their generally gentle friend step up to the counter to check them in and set people to action, they saw her in prime SBS Sophie mode. Next thing they knew, their bags had been loaded on a trolley and they were on their way up to their suite...

It was enormous. They all managed to keep their cool, waiting until it was just the thirteen of them on their own, but once they _were_ alone, the façade dropped. They would scurry this way and that, taking in their surroundings, calling out what they were finding and causing another avalanche of footsteps as the others would rush to see for themselves.

“How much would it cost to just stay here the whole time?” Lucas joked… sort of.

“A lot,” Farkle told him, with a knowing nod.

They would only be here for one night, checking out in the morning, when their journey would begin in earnest. The rest of the day was thus to be spent taking it easy, relaxing their flight away.

Until dinner time, the thirteen of them separated, here and there throughout the suite. Some of them turned on the television, curious to see what they’d find there. Others surrendered to a much needed nap or disappeared in a book. Then there were a few who went ‘exploring’ through the hotel.

Lucas joined Maya, as she sat at a large window, looking far into the distance. He’d been wondering why she was sitting with her back to the window, until he saw the sketch book in her lap, the pencil squeezed between her fingers. Once he was sitting next to her, he could see this was a perfect vantage point for her to sketch out the vast main room, down to their friends, some on the couches, others sat on the ground in front of the television. He could even see she’d drawn her legs, showing herself as the viewer of this scene. When he joined her, she started to draw a second pair of legs.

“Can you not put in the hole in my sock?” he whispered. She smirked.

“But how will I know it’s _your_ foot?” she asked in exaggerated inquisitiveness.

“Hey, I’d know that was your foot,” he pointed to her drawing.

“I smell a challenge… also, feet. This is what we get for talking about socks and feet long enough.”

“Alright, then let’s talk about something else. How much trouble do you think they’ll get in out there?” Lucas asked, bringing up their intrepid adventurers and future roommates, Riley, Dylan, and Sophie, who were at present time ‘visiting’ around the hotel.

“Sophie’s with them, they’ll be alright,” Maya laughed. “They might even get some swag…”

In the end, Lucas’ sock was reproduced, the hole kept out of sight. And, just before dinner time, the adventuring trio returned, informing the others that dinner was on its way. The promise of food brought around the sleepers and loungers, until once again the thirteen friends sat together to a meal. This time, they went about figuring out what they intended to do when they left the hotel in the morning.

There were more ideas than there was time for them all to be done. On the morning after next they were moving onward from London, which only left them the day to come to do whatever they hoped to do. They had to pace themselves, make choices. Before they knew it, it turned into a sort of voting session, each suggestion being met with a show of hands and the tallying of those hands. They weren’t so much votes as they were indications of their wanting to do the thing in question.

So, they settled on a loose sort of plan. In the morning, they would go to the places they all collectively wanted to visit, and then, once they’d gotten through those, they would split off to those places only some small groups wanted to see. If they could manage it, they would meet again for dinner, enjoying the evening as they decided to at that point, before gathering in their more modest lodgings for the night.

As to _this_ evening, it was spent as casually as any of their old movie nights had ever been spent, with snacks beyond their capacity to consume, a pile up of friends on the couches and on the ground… They really couldn’t have asked for more.

They all retreated to their respective beds in time, and of those there were five, in adjoining rooms, given over to the five couples among them. The remaining trio of Dylan, Riley, and Sophie, the adventurers now calling themselves ‘the singles’ table,’ had to take to the couches, which all in all was fine by them; they were very comfortable couches.

In their own room, of all the things they might have gotten up to, as they settled in for the night, Maya and Lucas found themselves staring up at the ceiling. They did have a history of appreciating those, like the one at the movie theater back in Austin. They stared up, lying side by side, and on this first night of many of going to sleep and waking up with one another, it felt as though they needed to give some acknowledgment, some reverence to the feeling it left in their hearts.

“Endings… beginnings… and the journey in between…” she whispered.

“Mmm?” he asked, looking back at her.

“That’s what I’m going to call it. The sketch book,” she explained, looking at him, too. He smiled, leaning to kiss her. That was exactly what it was…

TO BE CONTINUED


	359. Their Journey Into London

Leaving the hotel behind the following morning demanded some nudging of a number of the group, who suddenly didn’t feel so optimistic as to their accommodations now that they had experienced the likes of this.

“We’re not here to lounge around, are we?” Maya pointed out. “All we need is somewhere to park ourselves and go to sleep at night. It won’t be fancy, but it’ll have a nice, comfy bed waiting for you.”

“Nice speech,” Lucas told her as they finally trailed out of the room. “I won’t tell them how you tried to see if that pillow would fit in your bag,” he whispered, and she gave his arm a tap before signalling for him to keep quiet. He only smirked and followed.

They trailed around some time before deciding on where they’d stop for breakfast. Like anything else, they’d tried to do some research ahead of time, to spot out some places they’d want to go to eat. With how little time they would actually spend in each city or country, they needed to figure out how to make the most of their presence here. Thus, the potluck lunches – or potlunches, as they’d start calling them - were instigated. All of them would go off and pick something up from a different place before returning to the group, where they might pick at the various offerings and try a bit of everything.

That wouldn’t happen right away, of course. For now, it was time for breakfast, which also turned into a bit of checking in to the ‘parent hot line’ that was the group chat.

“Okay, let’s see,” Asher pulled up the chat, the morning’s designated speaker. “Zay, your mom says you forgot your lenses.” The others looked back at him, a load of curiosity on their faces.

“You wear lenses? Since when?” Lucas asked. Zay was frowning, telling them without needing to go into it that he’d absolutely realized he’d forgotten them and he’d been pondering how long he could get away with not wearing his glasses.

“Couple months,” he finally confessed.

“Just put the glasses on already, they’re cute,” Nadine encouraged him. He looked at her. “And so distinguished… handsome…” she gave his cheek a pat. Still grumbling, he reached into a pocket on the side of his bag, leaning near him on the wall of the restaurant, and pulled out a small case. He took out the glasses, unfolding the branches and slipping the frame over his face with a look that said ‘make a joke, I dare you.’

“Alright there, Clark Kent,” Dylan grinned. Zay pointed at him. “They look good, man,” Dylan insisted, holding up his hands in surrender.

“Right, can we move on, before he turns into a tomato?” Maya turned back to Asher and the phone.

“No problem, plenty of time to get back to that later,” Asher smiled, looking to his screen. “S…” he started, then frowned and scrolled up a bit.

“What?” Sophie asked, guessing he’d been about to say her name, since he usually referred to Smackle by her first name. “My mom?” Asher still hesitated, so Maya yanked the phone out of his hand to have a look.

“Hey…” he protested, but she was already seeing what he’d intended to skip over and she let out a sigh, understanding. Still, there was no point hiding it, as all it would take would be for Sophie to check the chat herself on her own phone.

“She says she’s set up an appointment for you at a university here and she’d like you to take it,” Maya explained, handing Asher his phone back. To see Sophie’s face sink just a bit, it made both Riley and Rebecca sitting on either side of her reach out a comforting hand to rest at her back.

“It’s fine, I’m not surprised,” she tried to shrug it off, as weak as it came off. “I’ve been waiting for her to pull something like this. She’s still not okay with me going to the academy. She acts like it’s fine, but I know how to read her better than she thinks.”

“But she helped us get the house in Houston…” Riley spoke, not understanding why Mrs. Zvolensky would also push for this.

“All _that_ cost her was a few phone calls,” Sophie told her. “She probably figured it would appease me until now. She knew we were headed to London. Two birds, one stone, right?”

“Are you going to go to the interview?” Dylan asked.

“No,” Sophie gave a decisive shake of the head. “She’ll be annoyed at me, but she’ll get over it. She’s going to have to.” And there she was again, the waver in her strength now resolved. “Keep going,” she told Asher. “The sooner we’re done here, the sooner we can start seeing the city.”

The control in their packing had not just been about making sure they didn’t bring too much stuff they wouldn’t need. Seeing as they would likely not have many repeaters as far as their lodgings went, spending two consecutive nights in one place, they had to carry their things with them the whole time, checking or stocking them in those places where they could but otherwise having the weight of those bags to hold for the majority of the days.

This quickly led to their having to consider the issue of souvenirs, as their London morning stretched on. They showed restraint, sure, but that only went so far, and considering what this would look like as the days started to add up, they imagined themselves on those last days, weighed down.

“I know what we can do,” Smackle suggested almost at once, as they sat to their London Potlunch. “At the end of every day or every other day, we get a box, put the souvenirs in it, and ship it back to Austin. If everyone picks up the cost of one box…” Just like that, they had their answer, and Farkle did them one better.

“We can put in anything from our luggage that we won’t need anymore, too. That’ll lighten our load even more.”

“That doesn’t mean we start exaggerating on the souvenirs,” Asher piped in.

“We wouldn’t,” Riley gave her most innocent sounding tone, though Maya could see the edge of a spark in her eyes.

They separated after lunch, as planned. One of those groups started off with Maya, Asher, Rebecca and Sophie, on their way to one of the museums their Art History teacher had recommended when they’d mentioned their upcoming trip, accompanied by Lucas, Ray, and Joey. Maya had been to this one before, three years ago, but that didn’t keep her from walking through with that much more appreciation for what she saw.

“Look at them, ex tour guides in the wild,” Asher whispered to Maya at one time, pointing to where Lucas and Ray were talking, staring at a painting. She had to press her hand over her mouth to guard against the giggle that threatened to burst out in the quiet of the museum.

“How much do you bet one or both of them will start telling people about one of the pieces here?” she whispered back.

“Are we putting money on this?” Asher asked, intrigued.

“Whoever loses has to buy and wear a weird souvenir in every city from here on out,” she offered, and Asher’s jaw slackened. “I lose if Lucas does it, you lose if Ray does. No inciting, we just let them do what they’ll do. If neither does it, then we’re in the clear.”

“And if they both do it?”

“Then you and I will look fantastic in all our pictures,” Maya smirked. Asher looked back to their boyfriends for a moment before turning back to her and offering his hand. They were on.

“What is that creature on your head?” Riley gasped, bug-eyed and stifling a laugh that Dylan did not manage to hold back one second. Upon being reunited with the rest of their friends in time for dinner, they all were treated to the sight of an overly tall and colorful hat on top of Asher’s head.

“I think it suits him,” Ray swept in for a valiant defense, whether or not he had laughed for six minutes when Asher had first bought and put it on his head. “But wait, there’s more…” he nodded back to Lucas. The others frowned, not sure what he was referring to. _He_ was doing his own part in presenting a unified front with his girlfriend, but there was only so much for him to do, so he had to step aside to show what Rebecca had decreed to be ‘the Londoniest a shirt is ever going to be,’ presently worn by a humble Maya.

“ _He_ lost twice, that’s why he has the hat,” she defended herself.

“Yeah, sorry about that, if I’d known…” Ray told Asher, but he shook his head, not frustrated in the slightest.

Finally sitting to eat, Maya and Asher explained the wager they’d set back at the museum. They all laughed, turning the conversation into the possibilities this would bring, as they moved on from city to city, the items they’d have to wear as they went.

“Say what you will, but this is just going to be efficient,” Maya brushed it off with a smile. “I can pretty much ship most of the shirts I brought with me back to Texas in our first box, if I’ll be wearing these the whole way. I’ve just cleared a bunch of space in my bag already.”

“Just keep a couple, in case you end up with a hat instead,” Asher tipped the one on his head.

After an exhausting but satisfying first day, Maya’s promise at the top of the day fulfilled itself in full. They didn’t care in the slightest that the two rooms they were sharing that night were smaller and more modest. There were beds for all, they could take a turn at a shower, get changed, watch some television…

Maya had been the first in her room’s group to get her turn at the shower, chosen at random, and once she’d gotten on her PJs – her London shirt and a pair of shorts – she was able to settle on her bed and start ‘unloading’ the days’ memories in her sketch book. There had been occasions here and there for her to get a bit of drawing done, but there was plenty more she still had to get to, and the anticipation building throughout the day was enough to send her hand flying across those pages with ease.

When Lucas had gone in for his turn in the shower – third of seven – she took up the opportunity to write him her letter of the day, dashing off to post it when she was done. She returned to find him back from his shower, sitting on their bed and inspecting the last sketch she’d done before the letter. She’d drawn herself and Asher in their bet losing city wear.

“Can’t believe you didn’t stop me from saying anything,” he chuckled as she leaned against him, slipping her arms around his waist.

“Hey, I followed the rules, you should be proud,” she shrugged.

“Killed you inside?”

“Total annihilation,” she confirmed. He closed the sketch book and set it aside, getting his arm under her before pulling her along to plop down on the bed. “I’ll get through it,” she vowed.

“There hasn’t been a shirt made that would make me find you anything less than cute,” Lucas promised, to which she gave a gesture as though to say ‘you’re too kind.’ “I’d say something else here, but we’re not exactly alone…” he whispered at her ear, making her stare up at him with questions in her eyes and a grin at her lips.

“That makes two of us,” she whispered back. “We’re better off getting some rest anyway, right?”

“Right,” he nodded like they both totally believed that. “New city tomorrow…”

TO BE CONTINUED


	360. Their Journey Into Paris

The next morning turned into something right out of Home Alone. They’d overslept, and when they finally _did_ all start to wake up, they discovered they had very little time to pack up their things, get dressed, and make their way to take the train that would get them on their way to their next destination. So, they had to get moving and quick.

They would sort out the things they’d more or less shoved into their bags in a heap once they got through their relocation. The important part had been to get everything together, which had been made easy enough for the fact that there hadn’t been much time for them to spread out in any way. Then they were checked out and hurrying on their way to the train station. It was a good thing some of them had food on them, because there were strong chances that they wouldn’t have the chance to stop for anything…

“Wait, look…” Joey pointed to the departures board as they all scrambled into the station, chasing after their breaths. When they saw what he’d seen, there was a release in their shoulders.

They hadn’t missed their train. Actually, it had been delayed ‘until further notice.’

“I’ll go see if I can get more information,” Nadine left her bag with Zay before striding off one way.

“We’ll go grab breakfast for everyone, you guys wait around here,” Dylan set down his bag, too, nodding to the Garcia twins and Ray, who did the same and went with him, leaving the remaining eight to carry their own bags and their friends’ over to a pair of rows of seats that faced one another.

“We’re going to need to make sure that doesn’t happen again next time,” Maya huffed, dropping into one of the seats. Lucas sat to her right, Riley to her left. “I don’t get up late, I get up…”

“Ridiculously early?” Lucas offered, and she threw him a look of mock hurt.

“Hey!”

“I’m sure the time zones are throwing us off, right?” Riley offered.

“Yes, that must be it, _thank you_ , Riley,” Maya went on looking to Lucas, who just smiled and leaned to press a kiss to his girlfriend’s cheek.

The food came, in the arms of the four boys, even as Nadine returned. They were expected to get to board in another twenty minutes. With this in mind, they did their best to eat quickly but not so quick as to overdo it. By the time they heard the boarding call, they were all done and they took up their bags to go and take the train.

Most of them slept through the ride that took them from London to Paris. Maya was wide awake, as were most of her friends from French class in these past few years. This would be as good of a time as any to put their studies to good use, and all it did was make them want to see the country, the city, as they rode toward them. For her part, Maya had her camera in hand, ready to capture some of what she saw, knowing it would pass her by much too fast to be able to commit it to memory and reproduce it later. She really wanted to be able to remember this.

The further along they went however, they noticed something brewing in the skies… dark clouds… rain… and more rain…

“It’s going to stop, right?” Sophie frowned, sighing.

It didn’t stop, not by the time they arrived and got off the train. This was no light rain where they might throw caution to the wind and journey out without cover. This was umbrella weather, which, coupled to their bags and the plans they had for the day, didn’t make for anything good…

“Let’s just go and check in now, we can leave our bags behind,” Farkle suggested, and they jumped right on board with this idea.

Their two rooms this time were not side by side but across a courtyard from one another. They split off and filed into their respective rooms. The lineup had been altered just a bit from when they’d been in London, ensuring that in either room the number of them who spoke French to some level or another was fairly represented, in case they were needed.

They all needed to dry up a bit before they’d head out again, and strictly speaking the rain worked against some of their resolve to go. But they all gathered again in one room, and after discussing the things they’d planned to see today, their anticipation slowly but surely rebuilt itself, and they went off into the city, umbrellas in hand and bags safely stowed.

Instead of starting together and splitting off later, this time they went out and did their separate things first, in what was left of the morning, the better to reunite for another Potlunch and do the rest of the day together. The day looked keen to continue in this way, with non-stop rain, which only made one of their plans feel even more appropriate.

By the time they did gather up again for the Potlunch, they discovered that neither Maya nor Asher had forgotten about their lost wagers. She now wore another touristy shirt, this time with some Parisian flare, while he kept up his motif, too, acquiring a new and just as eye-catching hat.

“This is too good, come here,” Asher chuckled when he saw her, and they moved toward one another, managing not to poke anyone in the eye as they maneuvered their umbrellas into some joined canopy and posed for a picture he took with his arm outstretched before them.

They could have had so many more of these lunches here, it seemed, and by the time they were done they sat a while, taking in their surroundings like it was really hitting them now, where they were. They’d known, of course they did, but it had never felt so profoundly real as it did in that moment.

“Is she crying?” Smackle leaned forward to quietly ask of her bandmates, tipping her head toward Riley, who had been looking around them, transfixed, for a few minutes. “Is that just the rain?” Maya and Nadine leaned to get a look before sitting up again.

“Not the rain,” they both replied at once.

Dylan had been faster than them, with a discreet hand off of a clean tissue which Riley accepted gladly, dabbing at the corners of her eyes. No one else had really noticed, and no one went out of their way to point it out. They’d be on their way before long anyway.

The afternoon was a lot of sightseeing, and museums off the Art History set’s list, which also got the French students involved, and _that_ then got the rest of them. They didn’t want to be left behind without an interpreter.

“We’ve looked worse coming out of the rain and into a museum,” Maya told Lucas, and he nodded in total agreement.

Dinner that day was met with much anticipation. After the issue with Sophie and her mother the day before, they had all decided that maybe it would be best if they all read through their parents’ messages on their own, even if the others could see them, too. Even so, as they all sat to eat that night, they couldn’t help but ask if she’d heard from her mother again. They hadn’t seen anything in the chat, but surely Sophie’s not going to the interview wouldn’t have gone by unnoticed.

“There were words, I don’t really… I don’t know,” Sophie shrugged, bowing her head a moment. “I’ll be fine, I’m just trying not to think about all that too much.”

“Well, we’ve got you covered,” Maya promised her.

After dinner, they took off into the still rainy city again, finding a movie theater where a particular movie would be playing, with its accompanying French dub. There was no guarantee in any way that they would actually pull off going to see it in every city, especially with what little time they had at their disposal in those cities, but then the rain had sort of settled the question for them, hadn’t it?

“That was so weird,” Sophie declared as they walked out after the movie. She was smiling though, which was more or less what they had wanted to happen. She was one of those who had been doing Spanish in school, but then that had been due to the fact that her mother had been having her learn French since before she could remember and she was fluent enough to pass for a native, something which had somehow slipped by in all the time she’d been friends with the rest of them.

“In what way?” Lucas asked.

“I mean I’ve tried watching French dubs before, and it’s always been too weird for me, I just keep getting distracted by the voices, the choice of words. I get way too technical about it,” she explained awkwardly.

The return to their rooms had seen a detour for something sweet, as though they hadn’t been eating their fill already. Rather than to separate off for the night immediately, they all piled in to one of the rooms, sitting on the beds and the floor, around the television, passing the box of treats around.

Maya was looking through the pictures she’d taken throughout the day, the memories making her smile to herself, and to Riley and Sophie, huddled in at either side of her, with the three of them plopped face down on one of the beds, propped up on their elbows. They would each point to one image from time to time, calling out a shot they really liked, or how much they had loved the subject of it…

By the time the group split off for the night, she was back in sketch mode. She had already written her letter that day, and so had Lucas. This much she knew because, when they had gone to ship the first of their boxes back to Texas before dinner, he’d had it ready to put into the post. So, now all she had left was to set down a few more of those memories into the book. Lucas was at her side again, as though he had also adopted the routine, watching her as she worked.

The days were going by so fast already. They were about to sleep their third night abroad already, and that was just wild to think about. They were all trying so hard not to let themselves sink into some kind of mindset where they would just be sad about how the trip was going to end in time, when it was barely just started.

They were trying, and still sometimes there would be this splash of frenzy in them like they were realizing how much they wanted to do and how little time they had to do it in. It had been so easy to say that they wouldn’t rush, that they’d adjust as they went, but now that they were actually here, now that they saw it… they just wanted everything.

“I think we did pretty good today,” Lucas told Maya as he watched her draw.

“We really did,” she smiled, not shifting her gaze from her work but acknowledging him with a tap of her foot over his. “One day, we need to come back, spend more time here… just you and me.”

“Count me in,” he replied with ease. Whether or not this was the day when the seed of the idea – for them to come back here on their honeymoon – was actually planted, no one could say for sure. But that would be the next time they travelled to France, just a few years later…

TO BE CONTINUED


	361. Their Journey Into Barcelona

They spent most of the following night sitting outside their hotel in Barcelona, just taking in their surroundings, and recalling the things they had seen and done on this day that had started with them back in Paris. Maya had her sketch book, and some loose paper for her letter to Lucas, same as he had some for one that he’d write for her. In all the chaos of being the thirteen of them out here from morning to night, having this thing that was just theirs felt almost necessary. More than that, this time of reflection was getting to be their favorite part of the days.

When they woke up that morning, it wasn’t a rush as it had been on the morning before, in London. Maya regained her early bird card, and when Joey woke up next, she recruited him to come along and get everyone breakfast. They returned to the hotel, finding in both rooms a few of the others starting to stir or sitting up in their beds while the rest went on sleeping. The smell of the food worked its magic on all of them, drawing them out of bed to grab something to eat.

They had over six hours of train ahead of them, to get them from point A to point B, and in order not to lose most of the morning to that journey they had taken the earliest train they could get, figuring any lost sleep could be regained on the train.

Lucas got around to read the message his family had sent him via e-mail overnight. Each of them had taken a turn at putting in their part, telling him how things were going back in Austin, asking him how the trip was going. They didn’t outright ask if everything was alright, but he could read it in their words, and he just had to smile to himself, recognizing the care in them. He wrote back to them collectively, though he did put in some words to each of them specifically.

After he’d sent it out, he turned back to see what Maya was doing. It seemed like her parents had gotten the same idea, although instead of writing they had recorded a video, her mother and father sitting on the living room couch with the twins on their laps. Every so often they could see one of the dogs walking about, like they knew this was going out to their favorite girl. She had her headphones on so he couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he only had to look at her face to know how it was affecting her, happy but also sad… she missed them.

Without a word, he took her hand, and she startled just a bit before looking back at him. He mouthed an apology, but she only squeezed his hand before passing him one of the earbuds, starting the video over so he could hear it, too. Like his parents’ letter, there was a lot of catching up and asking after how she was doing.

They told her that her mother had had a doctor’s appointment the day before and everything was going well with the baby, that the two of them had been talking about the space situation and what they would do about it. They didn’t have anything certain to tell her yet, but they were looking into a possible solution which, according to them, might be the best of both worlds, where everyone could end up happy. They would tell her more as soon as they could. And they missed her loads, as much as she missed them. They could both see it, even before they said anything about it.

“Here,” he motioned for her to hand her phone over. She hesitated, then passed it to him. He disconnected the headphones and passed them back to her. She watched him and, understanding what he was doing, she smiled and sat up in her seat, turning sideways to face him, the train window and the landscape slipping by in the background. “Ready?” he asked, and she nodded.

The video back to her parents turned into something of a group production, going from just her talking to her family back in Texas to her getting him to come into the shot and share a few words, too, which then got one and another and a few of the others to want to chime in and say hello. Finally, it had been sent off to its recipients, and those of them who were not asleep here got to talking about what they’d do once they got to Barcelona.

They had no rain to work around this time, instead finding themselves in the midst of a hot and sunny day. Even without the rain, they took the time to make a detour and check in and drop off their bags, even if it did mean losing a bit more of the morning that was already getting away from them. They had already looked into shifting their departure the next morning to get more time here.

So, their Spanish morning finally kicked off properly. The first order of business was, naturally, to see to a couple of shirts for Maya and Asher, who was not looking to get another hat and end up with a head of sweat. Instead, they ended up with matching shirts, which almost made the whole thing funnier to the pair of them, while their boyfriends were going around joking like they didn’t know them.

Maya had left her guitar back at the hotel the day before, with the rain and all that, but now with the sun out again over here, she pulled the case on to her back as they took off, because who knew when the occasion would come that she felt like taking it out and doing a song with the others, filming it and adding it to the ones they had done in London and Paris.

Maybe that was the thing to draw the eye, coupled with the other girls being near her as they walked along, seeing the sights. Suddenly, they were approached by a trio of girls speaking in an excited mash up of Spanish and English. They had recognized them as TXNY, and even though they knew they had fans out here, actually being spotted and approached like this… They were about as shocked as the girls had been, and it was the funniest thing.

Just like that, they inherited some eager and willing tour guides for the rest of the day. The girls, Adriana, Ines, and Martina took them to a few places they had been planning to go to, but also to a few they would not have known to go to, and that was almost better than anything else. They also came in with plenty of suggestions for their Potlunch of the day, which they shared with them. They went to see their movie with them, too, and when the band found their spot for the song of the day, they invited the girls to get in there with them.

They finally parted ways with these new friends after they’d all had dinner, not at a restaurant but at Adriana’s house, with her family. It might have seemed questionable to go into a stranger’s house, especially thirteen of them, but they had spent enough time with the girls to trust them, and no amount of insisting from them that they would pay them back in any way would have been accepted.

So, they all ate together, Adriana’s family and the girls all wanting to know about how they’d liked the city, where they were headed next… Martina put them in touch with a few other fans she knew in some of those cities, promising they would have guides to take them along if they wanted or needed them.

With many thanks, they departed, just their group again, and they went back to the hotel. Now, here they were, taking in the evening with some peace after the hectic, wonderful runaround day they’d just had.

“You have to show them that one,” Lucas smiled when he saw Maya had been sketching the three girls, sitting happily to the Potlunch earlier.

“I was thinking I’d reproduce it for them, mail it over… I know where one of them lives, remember?” she smiled back at him. “I’m still processing it, I think,” she admitted.

“The world famous TXNY,” he intoned, getting a few ‘whoop’ sounds from Riley and Nadine sitting nearby. Smackle added hers after the fact, which had them all grinning.

“Looks that way,” Maya nodded. In her head, all she could think was something more like ‘the soon to be geographically problematic TXNY.’ Seeing the impact that they’d had on Adriana, and Ines, and Martina, and apparently some other people in several countries, all of them an ocean away… They had to find a way to carry on, but now that they were out of high school, starting the next part of their lives, it did bring about another question.

Sure, they wanted to keep doing this, but… for how long? Would they still be at it, years from now, with families, with careers, and likely no closer to having the four of them living in the same city? What if some of them wanted to keep going and others didn’t?

“Hey…” Lucas nudged her shoulder and she looked at him. “I know that look,” he indicated her face.

“It’ll go away,” she shrugged, and he leaned over to kiss the side of her face. She smiled. “That helps.” He made a noise like ‘is that so?’ before moving to catch her lips in a new kiss she happily responded to. When they finally pulled apart an inch or two, her face was a beam of a smile. “See?” she whispered.

“And there’s more where that came from,” he promised, making her laugh.

She went on drawing, and he went on watching her draw. They would reminisce about the day as she did this, and every so often one of the others would come along to get a look and join the conversation. At one point they broke out the deck of cards Zay had bought for GiGi. He’d been buying one for her in every city they stopped in, knowing she’d get a kick out of it. Maya drew all this, too, the tired travelers, unwinding together.

As exhausting as it could all be, none of them regretted it, none of them wanted to stop or slow down at all. If it was up to them, they’d see so much more, more cities, for longer, more countries… It was awakening the taste for travel in a lot of them, especially those who had never really gone so far from home before. All this time the world had been out there, and it had been enough to know that it was there. But now they were seeing it, and they wanted more.

They went off to their rooms to turn in for the night before long. They all needed to get their go at freshening up before turning in and getting some much-needed sleep. In the morning they had a slice more of time in Barcelona before they were bound for the airport and the flight that would take them to the next stop on their travel chain.

“Good night,” Lucas whispered to her as he climbed into bed, slipping his arm around her like it was already something familiar to the both of them, and maybe it was. She huddled in close to him, her arms wound with his.

“Good night, Huckleberry,” she whispered back, as the world slowed and settled, and they drifted off to sleep and into dreams.

TO BE CONTINUED


	362. Their Journey Into Lisbon

The next morning, before getting packed up and checked out, they were able to go out and get a normal, sit down breakfast instead of eating in a rush or sitting around in a train station or airport, and they were all so happy for it. What more could they want than to get to sit and eat with their friends and just… just have a great time?

It stayed with a lot of them as they finally went back to get their things and started for the airport. This time around, to save what would have been a much longer trip, they were getting on a plane that would take them into Portugal. It would be the first place where they couldn’t count on any of them being in any way fluent in the language they expected to hear, but lucky for them they had this connection they’d made through Adriana, Ines, and Martina the previous day.

They had put them in touch with a brother and sister in Lisbon. They wouldn’t meet them right at the airport, but they would reach them in the city a few hours after their arrival. Until then, they would be on their own, so once again they went and dropped off their bags in their rooms.

“Wonder if we can go see the movie, while we wait to go and find Mia and Edgar,” Sophie suggested. “They might not have them on this early though…” she frowned, looking at her watch.

“We’ll go tonight, it’s alright,” Nadine told her.

They started their sightseeing on their own, deciding to stick together rather than to separate today. Another pair of matching shirts was added to Maya and Asher’s arsenal, swapped out from the Barcelona shirts they still had on. By this time, it was just something they knew was coming, and seeking out the most notable shirts they could find was becoming a game in and of itself. Once the winners had been found and put on, they would take another picture.

“I need to have those,” Asher laughed, looking to the screen.

Right there, in the silence that fell in for a beat afterward, the old sort of nagging thought came back at them again, the thing none of them really wanted to think about too much. They were all here together now, but soon after they went back to Austin, they’d all be leaving again, and not all to the same place. This trip was as much a celebration of their getting through with high school as it was all of them saying goodbye to… all of it, to the time where their lives were bound so tight to one another’s.

Once they all moved away, they knew none of it would be the same. They would tell themselves that it would be, that nothing would change between them, but they knew that wasn’t exactly true. Some among them knew it better than any of the others. Maya, and Riley, and Farkle and Smackle… They’d already experienced that subtle change that would find its way into their lives, and they knew there was no way to stop it, not unless a lot of them changed their entire plans… and they couldn’t do that either.

They wouldn’t disappear from each other’s lives, but they wouldn’t be the people they’d been up to now. They would have school, and the lives that they’d make in Houston, in New York, in Boston… They’d make new friends, and those new friends wouldn’t replace the old ones, but they would shape a new life around them, around the cities where they’d live, and everything else around them, and then the day would come where they realized they didn’t know each other the way they used to. Not bad, not less, just different, and there would always be this divide.

That divide, it didn’t have to be permanent, and they knew _that_ , too. Maya and Riley, they were the best example of that, in all of them. Maya had moved to Austin, almost six years ago, and Riley had remained back in New York, and for a year after that they had started to change, so that by the time Riley moved to Austin, too, their relationship wasn’t quite what it used to be.

That was almost five years ago now, and both of them could say that, while they weren’t exactly as they’d been back when they both lived in New York, they were about as close to that now as they’d been back then. So, even though they were all moving, headed into different cities, there was no way for them to know what would happen, four years from now. Would any of them move back to Austin? Would they stay where they were headed? Would they go somewhere else?

Their morning in Lisbon turned out to be a fairly easygoing one, all things considered, and it was just before lunch that they were approached by the siblings, Mia and Edgar, who turned out to be all of twelve and fourteen. There was no mistaking them, as they both came along wearing TXNY shirts and smiles up to their ears. Introductions were made, and then they were off to another Potlunch. Again, their young guides came through for them, as did the aunt who accompanied them.

The afternoon that followed was in many ways like the one they’d had the day before in Barcelona. Their guides took them from place to place, and at one point Maya broke out the guitar and they filmed one of their songs, sitting there. Edgar, as it turned out, had a solid voice on him, and when they told him as much he blushed like a tomato. Instead of going to anyone’s home, they invited the siblings and the aunt to join them for dinner and then the movie, of course.

“I’m really not getting tired of it,” Dylan declared with a smile as they left the theater, and the others all seemed to be in agreement. They had seen it three nights in a row, in three cities, in three languages, and who knew how many more times they’d do it, but they would actually be okay with seeing it as many times as they could. Maya could just imagine them putting it on, years from now, and how it would take them back to this time in their lives…

With their young guides gone off back home, they stayed in the city a while more, walking around with no real aim. When they went back to their rooms, they gathered up the things they wanted to ship back home and put the box together. They would ship it off in the morning before they went to the airport that would take them to their next destination.

In the room shared by Maya, Lucas, Asher, Ray, Dylan, Riley, and Sophie, they started the shower line again. At the same time, and maybe for feeling the separation deeply that day, they would start and take their turns calling home.

All of them, no matter which room, were aware of how little Sophie was looking forward to her call to her mother, but it was those of them in this room who would be doing their best to encourage her, and possibly to pick up the pieces after she was through with the call. Even as they were taking their turns, they could see her, sitting on the ground and staring up at the television in their room, her phone in her hand like she was trying to psych herself up and put the call in. So far, she wasn’t making any progress.

It’d be late afternoon for them, back in Austin, which did make things easier. When Lucas took his turn and called home, he knew his mother and father and grandfather would all be there. His grandfather had been the one to pick up and, just from the way he answered, Lucas had a feeling he had just called out ‘it’s him!’ or something like that when he’d seen the caller ID.

Even as they talked for a bit, Lucas could hear his mother in the background. He could practically see her standing next to him, trying to snatch the phone away. His father was probably there, too, trying to incite her to let Pappy Joe have his turn. She was the next one to come on the line, of course, and when she was finished, she had to relinquish the phone so his father could come on to speak to him. Lucas ended up repeating a lot of the same things to all three of them, but he didn’t mind. He was happy to hear their voices.

When Maya got on the line with her parents, first together on speaker and then separately, she couldn’t help but wonder and ask about this solution they were cooking up. All they would say for now was that they were getting closer to being able to explain what they were looking to do. There was no point pressing on, so she told them about the day, everything since the video she’d sent them.

She let them know that another box was on its way. They had decided they needed to pick one house to ship the boxes to, so they could go there after they flew home, the better to separate out their things again, and hers had been the one selected.

It was her turn at the shower, right after she’d hung up with her parents, so she went and took it so that the others could get their turn, too. When she stepped back out, squeezing water from her hair, her eyes fell on Sophie, still sitting there, unmoved. Maya caught Lucas’ eye and he shook his head. She hadn’t done it yet. Letting out a breath, she went and sat next to her.

“Hey…” she smiled. Sophie looked up toward her, figured out why she was there, then sighed and bowed her head again. Maya scooted over to sit side by side with her, inciting her friend to lay down her head in her lap. When she did, Maya didn’t say anything, about calling her mother, or why it was making her feel like this now. She just sat with her.

After a minute, there was Riley behind her, taking on the task of untangling her blond mane, which left her own hands free, one to go and hold Sophie’s, the other to run her fingers reassuringly through all that ginger hair running down her back.

Sophie was so much stronger than she looked, stronger than she’d been when they’d first met her, but this, her mother… it was her weakness, and the move she’d tried to pull… it had changed something. The rest of them, all they could realize was that they hadn’t known the relationship between those two the way they thought they did.

“Sophie…” she spoke quietly, when she finally did speak, “When we go back to Austin, you want to stay with me? Until we go to Houston?” She didn’t reply, but then she gave Maya’s hand a squeeze, and that was all she needed to know. “Done.”

Sophie didn’t call her mother that night. She fell asleep, there where she was. Lucas was recruited to lift her up and carry her to her bed, where the girls set about settling her in. Maya knew it might have been the reasonable thing to ask her parents first before making this kind of invitation, but she had it on good authority that it would be just fine, and that was all she needed. Even if she had to plead her case, she would do it.

They were all being parted, soon, but Sophie… Like Riley, and Dylan, she would be part of this little unit of theirs in Houston, along with Lucas and her, which made her family. Ask anyone how important that kind of bond was to Maya Hart, and there’d be no question.

TO BE CONTINUED


	363. Their Journey Into Rome

Bright and early the next morning, Maya was up and ready to move into action, and today she was on a mission. She was going to need an assistant, and all she had to do was turn in the arms that still held her and poke at her boyfriend’s face until he woke up and she’d be set.

When Lucas opened his eyes, still half asleep, there were fingers over his lips to silence him as he took in Maya’s face, holding a finger to _her_ lips. _Keep quiet_ , it said, and he nodded. Now her finger turned about, until she gave it a crook. _Follow me._

There was very little in the way of discretion when they were sharing a room with five other people, so the bathroom had to do. Once they were in there, she whispered and explained what she needed of him for that day. He paused for a moment, thinking, and then he nodded. He was in on her mission to give Sophie a good day.

It wasn’t going to solve everything, but it would do something, which was better than nothing. With this in mind, they left the room and went off to track down breakfast. Even as they were coming out of their room, Nadine and Zay were coming from the one they were sharing with Joey, Rebecca, Farkle, and Smackle. They were off to do the same thing, so they set out together.

Maya told the other two a bit about how things had ended up in their room the previous night, knowing there was no need to keep it quiet. Besides, if the others could do their part, too, they might do better.

Everyone had gathered in their room by the time they returned, so they were able to share the meal all thirteen of them together. Sophie was in there, and they could see she was doing her best to act normal, but it was all right there under her gaze, how much she was hurting inside. There wasn’t a whole lot they could do yet except what they were already doing, so they just kept at it until it was time to head to the airport for their flight to Italy.

Here again, thanks to their Barcelona friends, they were to meet someone, another fan of the band, who had been all too happy to step in and see them around Rome. She was supposed to meet them right at the airport, coming off their flight from Lisbon. Like with Mia and Edgar yesterday, she had made herself easy to find by wearing a TXNY shirt.

The tall brunette met them with giddiness that translated into wildly gesticulating hands and a faultless if heavily accented English that sometimes slipped back into Italian. As they moved to retrieve their luggage, the girl, Chiara, was introduced to the group, to Lucas, and Zay, Farkle, Dylan, Asher, Ray, Joey, Rebecca, and lastly Sophie. She only gave a small nod, though this response was not so notable as the one given in return by their guide.

“ _You_ are Sophie, you are… ‘ _arms out and spin_?’” she asked. At the sound of her screen name, Sophie blinked, like she was putting some pieces together, too. TXNY fan, Italy… Chiara… She blinked harder now; she _knew_ her, and the way she smiled… Maya wasn’t so sure her mission was needed anymore.

As they left the airport with Chiara leading them along, the rest of them were filled in on this faraway friendship they had not known too much about until now. If they thought back, the girls in the band especially, they might have recalled Sophie referring to another fan like her, who went by the screen name _‘4 things 1 lizard,’_ overseas somewhere, but that was the extent of what they really knew.

The longer version went that they’d started talking one day because Chiara had figured out what had inspired Sophie’s name, and when Sophie knew about Chiara’s, too, they’d just gone on talking. Sophie hadn’t really mentioned how she knew the girls from the band personally, not at first, but in time Chiara had sort of figured it out on her own. They would write each other almost every day, and yet in all this time there had been some details they had kept to themselves.

“I had no idea you lived in Rome,” Sophie told Chiara.

“I did not know you were traveling to Italy,” Chiara stated in return. “When Martina asked if someone could help you, I did not know you would be here, I… I hoped,” she admitted with a shy smile, and to see it matched on Sophie’s face, her friends standing nearby turned to one another, as they took in the scene presented before them and could only wonder if they were seeing it right.

After dropping off their bags, the morning’s activities were guided in a mix of things they’d wanted to see and things Chiara thought they should see. By the time they were bringing together the day’s Potlunch, the change in Sophie’s mood from what it had been just that morning, and the night before… It was a complete and miraculous reversal.

“I mean think about it…” Maya told Lucas as they walked out of one restaurant with a bag each. “We meet three fans, completely at random, in _Spain_ , and they’re friends with the _one_ person in the world that could have lifted Sophie’s spirits right when she needed it!” She shook her head, baffled, amazed… “Maybe she’s got a point with this whole hopeless romantic thing.”

“Well, sure, she’s happy now, but… It doesn’t solve the problem with her mother, does it? And then what happens when we leave here tomorrow?” Lucas pointed out. She turned to look at him, waving her hand in his face.

“Don’t spoil it,” she warned, and he smirked. “And I know all that, of course I do. You and me, we’re like… on standby right now. We keep watching her, in case that frown tries to make a comeback, right?”

“Yes, boss,” he nodded firmly. “By the way, today’s shirt looks great.” She looked down at herself, the new shirt… Asher was back with another hat today, and Maya was almost certain he’d gotten it to make Sophie laugh, if needed.

“It does, doesn’t it? Might be my favorite one so far.”

“I don’t know, I kind of liked the Paris one…”

Most of the afternoon was devoted to the day’s video. They showed the ones they’d done so far to Chiara, and she declared that she would help them make sure the one they’d do here would be the best one. They went to this place and that, filming the four members of the band together and apart, doing this and that as they took in the city. Sometimes Maya would break out the guitar and they’d do a bit more of the song… They’d have to piece it all together in the end, but already they could get a sense of what it would turn into and they couldn’t wait to see the finished product.

When all their ‘filming’ was done for the day, they went in for their always anticipated turn at the movie theater. Chiara was amused to hear about this project of theirs, seeing the movie again and again. Still, through a lot of the film, Maya and Lucas and a couple of the others could see Sophie and Chiara whispering to one another, like the first was asking for a translation and the other was providing one back. They both looked so happy that at times the others hardly seemed to exist around them.

Chiara stayed with them through the evening, through dinner and then just hanging around, first in the city and then back at the hotel. As the evening was winding on, it was to wonder whether their guide would ever head on home for the night, though in time she did. She said goodbye to those she’d met today, to the girls from the band…

Sophie stepped outside with her for several minutes. When she returned, on her own, she looked caught up between the happy feeling she’d been experiencing all day, and the feeling it left behind when its source was gone, and then… something else they couldn’t quite describe.

“Hey…” Maya went up to her. “You okay?” she asked quietly. Sophie looked back at her like she was just hearing her.

“Wh… Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” she bowed her head, the hints of a smile still visible on her.

“Hey…” Maya chuckled, clasping her friend’s shoulders until she looked up again. “I think today deserves a lot more than ‘fine,’ doesn’t it?”

“I…” Sophie started, hesitating. “I guess I never really… I didn’t know how I… and her…” she shook her head, breathing out.

“Kind of like whiplash, isn’t it?” Maya asked, and it made Sophie laugh.

“Now that you say it like that, yeah, kind of does,” she agreed, taking a few deep breaths. There was this thought, forming in her head, and Maya could just about map it out for herself.

“Hey, anyone still hungry?” she turned to the others, sitting around the room. A few hands went up. “Right, we’ll be back in a bit. Go, go,” she ushered Sophie back out of the room and down to where they might get something for the group. “The way I see it, you have two options… three, maybe.” Sophie said nothing, only listened. “Option 1, we make a few changes to our schedule, stay in Rome another day, or two, or more… Option 2, you stay here another day, or two, or more, and come meet us wherever we’ll be by then… Option 3, you ask Chiara if she’d like to come along with us for a while.”

“I…” Sophie blinked, not knowing what to say but also appearing at once thankful that her friend had seen where her head was at.

“Think about it, just decide before we leave for Germany tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay…” Sophie repeated. Maya smiled. She was so frazzled, she might have run into a wall if there had been one ahead of them… it was sweet.

When they came back toward the room, before they could get to the door, Sophie stopped her, hugged her good and tight. Maya just smiled, hugging her back. She didn’t dare ask how she was doing now with her Mom problem, not when she was so happy.

The late snacks were delivered and soon consumed. Maya had hers as she took up her post with her sketch book once again. Today’s images seemed to feature a lot of the beats of ‘the tale of Sophie and Chiara’ throughout the day, which really seemed appropriate with how the day had shaped up. Lucas seemed to realize that some conversation had happened between Sophie and her while they’d been gone, but with a slight shrug he got to understand that he’d see what it had been about in time, so he didn’t bring it up.

When she woke up, early the next morning, Sophie was already awake, sitting up in her bed like she’d been waiting for her to wake up, too.

“Hey…” Maya whispered, as Sophie got up from her bed and came to crouch next to hers.

“I think…” Sophie started, paused, and then with more resolve continued, “I’m going to stay here today. I’m going to find Chiara again, spend the day, just the two of us, and then… I’ll meet you guys in Amsterdam, the day after.” Maya carefully untangled herself from Lucas’ arms, moving to crouch by the bed with her friend.

“You can stay longer if you want to…”

“I know. But I think I just need to take this one day, to… to know where we stand, what happens next. But if something changes, I’ll let you know,” she vowed.

TO BE CONTINUED


	364. Their Journey Into Berlin

Maya and Sophie let the others keep on sleeping, and it wasn’t until they were all awake and they went down to get breakfast together that Sophie revealed she’d be staying behind and catching up with them the next day. The decision was met with a lot of questions, obviously, and they could see that Sophie was nervous about explaining. Maya gave her a nod, hopefully passing on some courage along with it, and she told them plainly. She needed more time with Chiara.

She went along with them to the airport, saw them up to the gate, where they all got their turn hugging her and wishing her luck. She told them she would expect a lot of stories from their time in Germany when they met up again.

“That goes for you, too, Zvolensky,” Maya smiled, the last one to hug her goodbye.

So, off they went, now twelve of them flying from Rome to Berlin. It almost felt wrong, not having Sophie there with them, but it would all be worth it in the end, that much they could believe.

The girls back in Spain did not have someone in Berlin for them to have as their guide through the city, but then, thanks to Chiara, they found not one but two. Her cousin Mauro had married a German girl, and they happened to live in Berlin, with their one-year-old daughter. She’d written to him, and he and his wife had agreed to accompany them today.

They couldn’t meet them until after lunch, so they’d be on their own until then, but that was alright, too. Chiara had set them off with a starter list, along with a few restaurants, from previous visits to see her cousin and his family.

By the time they made it to their German Potlunch, Maya couldn’t help but notice Lucas seemed a bit distracted. She reached out her leg from where she sat, giving his foot a nudge until he looked at her.

“What’s on your mind there? You’ve got that faraway look thing going, which, don’t get me wrong, looks fantastic on you… I’d still like to know if there’s something I should be worried about, or…”

“What? Oh, no, no, nothing like that,” he assured her, coming to sit closer.

“Is it my fantastic new shirt?” she asked, gesturing toward it like a game show presenter. He laughed.

“The shirt is excellent, as usual,” Lucas told her. “It’s just that yesterday, before you pulled me in to help Sophie, I… kinda had plans.”

“Oh…” she blinked, then frowned to herself. “Were they very Roman plans?”

“They… could be turned into Berlin plans, which is what I’ve been trying to figure out,” he explained. She grinned at once, her face saying she wanted to help. “No, no, this one’s on me,” he shook his head, making her lean in like that would sway him and get him to spill his secrets.

“You don’t want my help, Huckleberry?” she asked, with the hint of a mopey tone in her voice.

“Any other time, I would,” he told her. “The only way you can help me is by telling me if you brought anything that would be suitable wear for a capital D Date.”

She gasped, finally understanding, and now that she knew what he’d been intending to do, she felt even worse about his not getting to do what he’d wanted to do in Rome. Almost in the very next breath though, she remembered that, just because they hadn’t been able to do this in Rome, it didn’t mean they couldn’t do it in Berlin.

“Alright, alright, carry on then,” she sat back, appeased.

“ _Do_ you have anything that doesn’t say Berlin, or Rome, or Lisbon, or any of the other cities we’ve been to on the front?” he asked again.

“Wait a second… Is that what’s in that bag in your luggage? Did you bring a suit?” she laughed.

“Maya,” he waved his hand, getting her back on track.

“Sorry, I didn’t,” she finally answered him. “If you’d told me, I would have though. I mean I have something clean, in case we went somewhere that was just a bit more formal, but it doesn’t really feel… enough, for that kind of…”

“Our first one of these Dates was spent with both of us looking like drowned animals most of the night. I just want to take out the girl I love on a fancy date, I’m sure whatever you have is going to be perfect,” he shrugged. She let out a breath, leaning forward to kiss him.

“You sure do know how to use your words,” she smiled, still an inch from his face.

“Can’t help it when I’m around you,” he smiled back.

“See? You’re doing it again.”

Chiara’s cousin Mauro and his wife Anna came to meet them where they’d said they’d be. Mauro had his younger cousin’s sort of frizzy brown hair and something of a vaguely familiar look about his face which made him easy to spot. Having left their daughter with Anna’s mother, the couple were ready to accompany the group, and so they took off together. As they went, Maya and the girls from the band explained how they knew Mauro’s cousin, which he still hadn’t known as their connection.

“I thought you looked familiar, from the videos Chiara watched when she visited us a few months ago,” Anna smiled. “They were good songs.”

“Thank you,” the girls spoke over one another.

Halfway through the afternoon, Lucas had just about figured out his new plans for the Date. The first part would involve leaving the others to head back to the hotel and get changed, probably shower, too. So, around three o’clock, they excused themselves from the others, telling them they’d meet back later at the hotel.

When they arrived back in their room, he asked if she wanted to take the shower first, to give her time to get her hair dried again. He turned back to find her sticking the ‘do not disturb’ sign outside the door before shutting and locking it. She looked back at him, and there was no mistaking that look in her eyes. His knees buckled just a bit.

“Oh… hey…” he breathed as she walked up to him, snatching up the front of his shirt.

“It would be very silly of us to ignore the fact that, for the first time since we left Texas, it’s just you and me in one of these rooms, wouldn’t it?” she asked, her voice low.

“So silly, so very… very silly,” he agreed, sweeping her off the ground and toward the bed to the tune of her laughter.

In time, they combatted the urge to just stay in the room and finally went about preparing for their Date. When Lucas finally saw the outfit she’d deemed as less than Date appropriate, he just smiled, not because it might make her feel better, but because he genuinely thought she looked like a marvel, and _that_ was what made her feel like she’d never needed to concern herself.

The restaurant he took her to for dinner had been a recommendation from Mauro. He was friends with the head chef, which was possibly the only way they even got a table. When Maya saw the prices, she didn’t need to check the exchange rate to know that this was going to cost a lot. She gave him a look, but Lucas told her he was well aware and it was fine.

“I told you, I planned for this,” he reminded her with a smile. “I’ve got this.”

“I don’t know what you’re going to do from now on, I mean… How do you top a Date in Berlin?” she asked, planting her chin in her palm with an inquisitive look.

“Well, I’m waiting to hear back from the moon, I think we’re almost at the top of the list now,” he crossed his fingers, making her laugh.

“What happens after the moon then?” she wondered.

“Come on, leave me some surprises,” he shook his head with a smile.

Dinner was without a doubt a highlight of their whole trip, and they would send thanks to Mauro for arranging it for them. After they left the restaurant, they went in search of a movie theater. They hadn’t gotten around to seeing the movie with their friends this time around, but they would get to see it just the two of them at least.

They found seats not so close to the front as to be too close, but near enough. They’d just sat down when Lucas caught the sound of a familiar voice, further back, and he quietly turned to try and get a look.

“Maya, they’re here,” he whispered, and she ducked and turned to look, too. Indeed, there were their ten friends, settling in over a single row closer to the back of the theater.

“What do we do?” she whispered back.

“They don’t know we’re here, let’s keep it that way. It’s fine,” he promised, taking her hand. Letting out a sigh, they turned around again to sit forward, though they still did their best not to let too much of the backs of their heads show, in case one of their friends recognized them from a distance.

By some chance, a couple of tall guys came and sat just behind them, giving as much cover as they could need. It still took them a good ten minutes of the movie having started before they were able to put their friends out of their thoughts and settle back into their Date. Maya leaned her head to his shoulder, and Lucas took her hand in his, and they watched the movie, now for the sixth time in as many languages. They had another moment to hit pause on ‘Date mode’ when the movie ended and they had to remain where they were, waiting for their friends to leave before they could exit, too, and go off in a different direction from them, but then they were back on track.

“I think the Italian one had the best voices,” Maya told him as they walked along. “I say ‘I think,’ of course, because I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but the voices were good at least,” she shrugged.

“I don’t know, the guy’s voice wasn’t bad in this one, too.”

“ _This_ guy?” she hooked her thumb back in the general direction of the theater. “It was way too low, he sounded like he ate gravel or something.”

“Yeah, that’s what made it good,” he insisted, and she shook her head to herself.

They’d looped back in the direction of the hotel in time, knowing they were setting out for a very early train ride out of Berlin in all of hours, though they did stop to sit outside for a little while more, staring at these stars and finding themselves wondering if these were the same ones as back home for a while before they decided that it didn’t matter, and whatever stars these were, they liked staring at them, too.

Thinking of home was something of a lottery while they were out here. They never knew what feeling or thought would be drawn out of them. This time… it was the thought of their impending move to Houston, to the house that was to be theirs for the next four years at the least.

They were set to get the keys… well, before they even went home. Lucas’ father had been the one who’d volunteered to go up there and pick them up, three days before their return. The place would be empty, and after they got back, they would be going up, a load of them, to take care of paints and wallpapers and potential repairs.

And in less than a month they would be moving out there, the two of them, and Riley, Dylan, and Sophie. In less than a month, much less if they subtracted the time they still had out here before their return, they would be leaving home to settle in a brand new city, settling in, familiarizing themselves with their new surroundings before most of them started school again in the fall.

“It’s all happening so fast, isn’t it?” she asked, looking back to him. He could only nod, knowing exactly what she meant. Already they were on what was their seventh day in a trip he could still remember them first discussing, three years before. They were all very familiar with the tricks that time played on them, but it didn’t mean it got any less strange.

“All the more reason to enjoy all of it, right?”

“Right,” she looked back to him. “Hey… want to be super nice?” she asked with big, pleading eyes.

“Always,” he laughed.

“Can you go and get my kit from the room?”

He went off at once, soon returning with Shawn’s gift, which was already getting to be near half loaded up with images of their trip. They always tried not to flip back through the pages, wanting to keep that sort of retrospective for when it was all over, though they could catch small glimpses as she flipped the book open in her lap, up to the next blank page.

“I’m going to be in a lot of these tonight, aren’t I?” he asked, watching her pick out a pencil and check the lead.

“Nothing I wouldn’t show my parents or yours,” she declared, and he let out a small disappointed sound, making her snort. “Maybe on your birthday,” she teased, and the way he blinked at that just made her laugh.

They settled on a time for their return to the room so they could get to bed, knowing she’d get carried away with the drawings if she didn’t have someone looking at the time. When that time came, she wasn’t quite done, but then they’d be on a train for over six hours, so she’d have time to continue then. It wasn’t as though she would ever forget this night.

“Should we tell them we were in the theater at the same time they were?” Lucas asked her as they walked back into the hotel.

“What happens in Berlin, right?” she told him, shaking her head.

“Isn’t that Las Vegas though?”

“Vegas is just a few hours away from us on a plane. Berlin has an ocean in between, so what do you think?” she countered, and he had to hand it to her, she kind of had a point. “It’s not a lie, it’s just… boyfriend/girlfriend privileged information,” she declared. “Only we get to know.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	365. Their Journey Into Amsterdam

They hit what was really their first and only substantial issue up to then on the following morning, as they reached the train station.

They had gotten up at the kind of bright and early which Zay had once deemed ‘still dark and way too early’ and gotten their things together. They had meant to ship off a new box back home the night before but had forgotten to do it in the end, so they would have to do it once they got to Amsterdam. The post office was not going to be open before they took off from Berlin… At least that was what they thought.

When they reached the station, half of them had gone in search of breakfast to bring back to the rest of them. Those who had been left behind were the first ones to learn of the problem.

Their train had been cancelled. And so was the next one. There wouldn’t be another until the next morning at this time again.

“What now?” Nadine asked.

“We can grab a plane?” Farkle took out his phone to start looking at flights.

There wouldn’t be enough space on any nearing flights to take all twelve of them, and none of them were looking forward to splitting up. The next flights after this wouldn’t get them into Amsterdam until mid-afternoon, by which point their ability to give the city anything like a fair shake would be lost, and it would throw their entire schedule off.

So, they had a choice. They could take one of those flights anyway, stay in Amsterdam for that half a day and the whole of the next one, or they could stay in Berlin and try their way again in the morning.

Getting a message from Sophie, telling them that she was catching a flight to meet them in Amsterdam and would meet them at the hotel they’d chosen, had been the deciding factor. They wrote back to her that they would meet her there, though they didn’t have a specific time yet. It was as they were making their way to the airport that Smackle came up with an idea she looked mad at herself for not thinking of earlier.

They couldn’t take the direct train to Amsterdam, but they could split the journey in two, taking a detour. In this case, it turned out to be a detour through Hamburg, which would add an hour or so to their original time but would still be more than fair… so long as they could make it back to the train station on time.

They caught their train – almost literally – by the skin of their teeth. They ran into the station, got their tickets, then scrambled in such a hurry that they barely took a pause when both Riley and Dylan tripped and fell and pulled themselves back on their feet in almost the same motion, carrying on running.

It was the ticket agent who noticed the fact they’d both gotten a few scrapes on the way down and were bleeding from a knee here and a palm there. The sight of the blood had kept his attention, and if not for that they may have missed getting through the door.

They all stumbled off to get their seats, stowing away their bags as they were still catching their breaths. Dylan was maybe more familiar with scrapes, and he paid little attention to his own, instead pulling the first aid kit his mother had told him to take along for… well, that exact proclivity to cuts and scrapes. Between the two of them, it was more or less a kind and thoughtful gift.

He went about cleaning and covering the scrapes on Riley, who’d hit both knees through her pants and the side of her left hand. If you ever needed someone to keep you distracted from the sting of disinfectant, Dylan Orlando was your guy. He talked and talked as he worked, and after a while Riley stopped wincing at every dab.

“Here, I’ll do yours,” she reached out for the kit when he was done with her, and Dylan happily presented his scraped palms.

This would be the height of ‘excitement’ in their journey from Berlin, to Hamburg, and then on to Amsterdam. They spent most of that journey either sleeping or staring out at the changing landscape. As intended, Maya set herself to sketch out a few more things from the previous night, though as on their previous train transits, the call of the window was hard to resist. She would draw for a while, but if she ever chanced a glance up it would usually be a few minutes before she turned her eyes back down and went back to work.

By the time they were crossing into Amsterdam, they knew Sophie had already made it to the hotel and was waiting for them. They didn’t know much of how her extra day in Rome had gone, and for not knowing it, they were left to want to get to her as soon as possible, rather than leaving her on her own.

A little over an hour later, they were coming up to the hotel, where they found their friend waiting in the lobby. She was all smiles, and to see how they crowded around her people might have thought they hadn’t seen her in years instead of a day and some dust.

They reconvened in one of their rooms, the one she had already checked into, and there the stories were unfurled, from the group’s side and Sophie’s, too. She wanted to know about their time in Berlin, and she wanted to know what had happened to Riley and Dylan and how they’d gotten hurt. Zay quickly laid down the bigger points, one after the other, until she had been caught up well enough, and just like that, it was her turn to speak.

“It went great…” she started, a shy flare coming over her. “We hung out all day, and I ended up staying at her house instead of going back to the hotel on my own. She drove me to the airport this morning.”

That was as much as she seemed willing to say now, but all it took was for Maya and Nadine to gang up and nudge the boys out of the room and new passages of Sophie’s story came to be found.

“I… I wasn’t sure what to do, o-or say… Whatever I’m feeling, I didn’t know how to sort it out, and I didn’t want… if she didn’t feel the same,” she started, a bit more open but still blooming pink all over her face as she spoke. “This morning, I was still deciding if I should stay another day or come out here and join you, but it was like… If I didn’t leave now, I don’t think I could have left, so I told her that, and she drove me to the airport, and we waited for boarding.

“When they called my flight, I tried to think of what to say, but I couldn’t find the words. And Chiara… She didn’t have any words either,” she looked back up to her friends, a very small but so sly smile finding its way on to her face. There were a few happy gasps as they understood: in the place of insufficient words, Chiara had sealed her claim with a kiss.

“Sophie Zvolensky, look at you…” Maya breathed with a proud smile on her face.

“What happens now?” Riley asked.

“You could have stayed over there, we would have understood,” Rebecca promised.

“It’s okay,” Sophie told her. “We’re going to work it out, once we’re settled in Houston, she’ll come over for a visit.”

Now that they had been reunited and they were settled at the hotel, they were able to head off into the city for the day. It almost felt weird, between Sophie’s return and the trouble with their trip over from Berlin that morning, to return to the rhythm of the day to day on their trek from country to country. They had no guide here, though they got along well enough on their own. They didn’t intend to separate, not today. They felt instead a deep desire to remain around one another.

After shipping their box home, they started going around the city, hitting a few sites, another museum off the Art History list… They would be going to the movies after lunch.

“Once a year, at least once a year, we all get together,” Riley offered, raising her glass as they sat to their Potlunch, looking around to her friends, waiting to see what they’d say.

“At least once a year,” Maya chimed in, and the others did the same.

“If someone needs the others, unless there’s just no way, we go,” Joey proposed another rule, and this one passed, too.

“We make time for each other,” Farkle followed. “We don’t feel bad if we can’t.”

“Standing invitation at the Babineaux party every summer,” Zay told them all.

“We need to go camping with Pappy Joe again,” Maya looked to Lucas, making him smile.

“TXNY lives,” Nadine decreed, and her bandmates raised their glasses high.

One by one, they all found another rule to add to the roster, what they’d come to refer to as the Amsterdam Treaty, and the more it grew, the more it felt like those invisible bonds between them were getting stronger, bracing for the upcoming separation. It was only geography. Their friendship was bigger than that.

“We welcome any and all who’ll come along,” had been the last rule pronounced, given over by Sophie with a grin.

By the time they were sitting in the movie theater, and after they left it again, the weirdness of their return together had gone away. They were ready to make the most of their afternoon, complete with another TXNY video. It had not been intended that way, but maybe the spirit of their new treaty had been too much not to make them feel caught up in a moment, because before long it wasn’t just Maya, Riley, Nadine, and Smackle singing but Sophie and Rebecca, too, and then the boys, too.

Four voices were one thing, and it did tend to draw attention, but with thirteen of them now, they had a bit of a crowd around them by the end, listening in, probably wondering what this was about. So long as no one seemed to want them to stop, they had told themselves from the start of doing these videos that they wouldn’t stop, that they’d keep going. No one could really see the people on the videos, not their faces at least, so they wouldn’t get in trouble.

No one stopped them this time, just as they hadn’t stopped them before. After a while it was like they weren’t there anymore and it was just the thirteen of them again, sitting together on a summer day in Amsterdam, singing along.

At dinner that night, Nadine turned to Maya and Riley, sitting nearby. “Smackle and I were talking earlier,” she informed them, looking back to the other girl for a moment. “And we agreed that, if you can find some people in Houston, to get in on the band with you, then you should do it.” Both Maya and Riley looked unsure how to respond to this.

“Are you not…” Maya started to ask.

“We’re not quitting,” Nadine specified at once, sitting up. “We’ll still be involved in any way and at any time we can. Smackle, obviously, can keep doing what she’s been doing, and she’s okay with that, and me… I know I’d rather let you two get to go on in some way than to hold you back. It’s the only way TXNY can thrive. I’m just opening up the way for you. I know you’ll find someone great,” she smiled, and as much as she said she was okay with it, they also knew it felt like a sacrifice to her. But she wanted this, for her friends.

“Thank you,” Maya reached over and clasped her hand. What else was there to say? Riley reached over, too, and in all this they hadn’t seen Smackle come around the table, not until her hand joined the other three and they saw her standing behind Nadine.

The more the day went by, the more developments came upon them, and it had never felt so much like they were hitting crossroads. Pieces of their lives were solidifying, creating new paths ahead of them, diverting from where they’d been to where they were headed, and they wouldn’t know where they’d be taken to, only that they needed to go.

New possibilities, new friendships, new loves… and it was coming so much faster than they had expected it to come.

That night, sitting in their room, with her sketchbook propped up on a pillow on her lap, as usual, Maya felt it all coursing through, again and again, as she set the images in her head to the paper by means of her hand and a pencil, and she kept thinking her hand would go and shake, preventing her from getting anything done.

“You know what I’ve been thinking about?” Lucas asked her, sitting as ever at her side, watching her work. When she didn’t respond, he set his chin at her shoulder. She blinked, concentration breaking as she turned to look at him.

“Hey…” she smiled. “Were you saying something?”

“I was,” he nodded. “I was asking if you knew what I’d been thinking about.”

“No, what?”

“I was thinking about three years ago.” She frowned, curious. “Fake Christmas?” he reminded, and she nodded her head in slow motions, indicating that, yes, she was remembering.

“You were spying on me then, too,” she recalled.

“Spying? Who spied? I didn’t spy,” he insisted, and she bit back a laugh. “I observed.”

“Yeah, you do that a lot,” she made a face. “I gave you a drawing, and you stuck it on your wall, next to the other one, the one of us the day we met. I should really give you an update, then you… No, wait, no point hanging it up next to the other ones in your room, seeing as it won’t be your room for much longer…”

“Then we’ll put them in _our_ room, in Houston.” She still had that smile, when he said ‘our’ room, and he’d never get tired of seeing it.

“It’s not going to turn into my first room back in Austin, all the walls covered, is it?” she joked.

“If you keep updating it, a few more years, and a few more, and a few more…” he pressed a kiss to her shoulder at each increase.

“Well, in that case, yes, I’ll allow it… We might have to move them, if we leave that house. Oh, we should get a place and have a room that’s just for hanging art,” she suggested.

“Like our own museum?” he smiled, that smile that burst with all the love he had for her, whenever he could see how excited she’d get over something new.

“Yes!” she nodded, laughing. “We’ll be able to put my art… and maybe Sam’s too… and then…” The thought settled itself in her with the weight of importance, pushing a breath free in the midst a chuckle. _And then one day, maybe our kids’ art, too…_ She looked down to meet his gaze, and she knew he could see the thought in her eyes.

The future, _their_ future, it was coming at them as fast as anything, and they knew it… they’d known it for a while, and it had never scared them, still didn’t. Instead, the closer it got, it felt like it couldn’t come fast enough, even as they did their best to enjoy each day together, not to rush along.

“And then,” Lucas agreed, and she just smiled, getting back to her sketch book.

The temptation was right there for him to tell her about Pappy Joe’s house, the land, how it all belonged to him now, but again he held it in. There would be a day for that surprise, and he couldn’t spoil it. But the possibilities that the place gave them… They _could_ have their own ‘museum’ room if they wanted to… there’d be plenty of room, wouldn’t there? And if there wasn’t enough…

“Maya,” he sat up, looking at her.

“What?” she asked, puzzled by the startled look on his face.

“I think I know what your parents are doing.” They still hadn’t said anything, and the mystery had been a point of discussion between them. But now, he thought he might know.

“You do?” she asked, just as curious to hear what he had to say.

“I guess it’d make sense that they wouldn’t want to say anything until they knew, or…”

“Lucas,” she clicked her fingers, stopping him from rambling on.

“I think they want to see about making the house bigger. Not sell it, just… add to it.” He watched her as she considered this. Somehow it had never crossed their minds before now, and he wasn’t sure how she’d feel about it, if changing her little house was the same as getting rid of it.

“Can they do that?” she asked, still processing the idea.

“Probably what they’d trying to find out, but yeah.”

Maya tried to imagine it. She could see it in her head, like another sketch. Their little house, one floor above ground, another below, but then what if there was another floor above all that? Would it still be the same? No. Would that be a bad thing? Once upon a time, she might have thought it would be, would have hated the thought of anything changing, but now… As she was now, she was a creature born of change. Her family had changed, too, years alone with her mother and then her father, and then her sisters, her siblings in New York, the new baby… Her whole life had gotten bigger, and better… Why couldn’t her little house, too?

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sequel, "Endings, Beginnings, and the Journey in Between," will be up shortly!


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